


The One With the...

by allyasavedtheday



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Friends (TV) Fusion, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 16:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 39
Words: 50,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2779547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyasavedtheday/pseuds/allyasavedtheday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So a few months back I did a Friends episode title prompt meme and I was asked to compile them altogether on ao3 to make them easier to keep track of. Therefore each chapter is a different prompt (which if you'd rather read them on my tumblr you can find them all <a href="http://allyasavedtheday.tumblr.com/tagged/my+fics">here</a>)</p><p>I tried to put these in some semblance of order so the first 22 can all be considered part of the same timeline while the rest are just miscellaneous ones.</p><p>***please note, The One With All The Cheesecakes isn't here because I already posted this on ao3 a while back with some added scenes. So if you're looking for /that/ it's called Maybe If I Tell Myself Enough I'll Get Over You </p><p>So if this is your first time reading or if you just wanna find one of these badboys a little more easily, I hope you enjoy it! :)</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. The One With The East-German Laundry Detergent

**Author's Note:**

> So a few months back I did a Friends episode title prompt meme and I was asked to compile them altogether on ao3 to make them easier to keep track of. Therefore each chapter is a different prompt (which if you'd rather read them on my tumblr you can find them all [here](http://allyasavedtheday.tumblr.com/tagged/my+fics))
> 
> I tried to put these in some semblance of order so the first 22 can all be considered part of the same timeline while the rest are just miscellaneous ones.
> 
> ***please note, The One With All The Cheesecakes isn't here because I already posted this on ao3 a while back with some added scenes. So if you're looking for /that/ it's called Maybe If I Tell Myself Enough I'll Get Over You 
> 
> So if this is your first time reading or if you just wanna find one of these badboys a little more easily, I hope you enjoy it! :)

“Scotty, look at him,” Stiles sighs longingly, watching Derek at the counter of the coffee shop from where he’s slouched on the couch. “I can’t believe you never told me about your super-hot friend from college, dude. Low blow.”

“How was I supposed to know you’d find Derek attractive? And how was I supposed to know Allison would be the one to help him run away from his wedding with her _aunt_ and then bring him here?” Scott questions incredulously. “I didn’t think I’d ever see him again after I graduated.”

“I know but-“ Stiles makes an unintelligible whining noise, watching the bashful smile on Derek’s face as the barista hits on him. “He’s so _pretty_.”

“So ask him out,” Scott suggests and Stiles casts his eyes away from Derek to stare at him in bewilderment.

“I can’t just ask him out!” he sputters.

“Why not?”

“Because he just moved here! And he just got out of a really bad relationship!” Stiles lists frantically. “He must be totally overwhelmed.”

“Well I think he could use a friend besides me,” Scott says knowingly. “And I’ve seen him looking at you.”

“Don’t _say_ stuff like that,” Stiles hisses, smacking his arm. “Stuff like that makes me wanna try.”

“So try.”

Stiles scowls at him before quickly schooling his expression when he sees Derek coming over.

“Hey man,” Scott greets cheerfully. He always gets this gentle, encouraging smile on his face when he talks to Derek, like he’s trying not to scare him off.

“Hey,” Derek replies, sitting in the armchair perpendicular to the couch and curling his hands around his coffee mug.

“How’s week two in the city?” Scott asks.

“I still have no idea what I’m doing,” Derek sighs. “My apartment still isn’t unpacked and on top of that, I have two weeks’ worth of laundry to do because there’s no washer in my building.”

“Hey Stiles can help you out with that,” Scott says instantly and Stiles whips his head around to look at him disbelievingly. “He was gonna do laundry today anyway, he can show you how the machines at the Laundromat work.”

Derek looks at Stiles, a little bit hesitant and a lot considering.

“It _does_ help to have a laundry buddy,” Stiles finds himself saying. “The old ladies hone in on newbies instantly and they can get mean.”

Derek smiles faintly, nodding after another moment of looking unsure. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Stiles repeats in shock.

“Yeah I’ll come with,” Derek elaborates. “I’ve gotta start getting to know the city, might as well start there.”

“Wanna go after you finish your coffee?” he asks, trying to wipe the amazed look off his face but he’s been trying to come up with an excuse to spend time alone with Derek since he got here. He just hadn’t imagined it would involve sharing laundry detergent.

About an hour later they’re in the Laundromat on the corner of the block, standing in front of a row of washers.

“Okay so you just put the quarter in here,” Stiles points to the coin slot. “And then the detergent in here and always remember to leave the box of detergent on top of the machine so people know you’re using this one.”

Derek frowns, nodding seriously like this is all vital information. It’s so cute Stiles wants to cry. “Okay,” Derek says eventually, picking up his basket of clothes and beginning to shove them all into the one washer.

“Hey whoa what are you doing?” Stiles asks hastily, grabbing Derek’s wrist.

“Putting the clothes in,” Derek replies confusedly.

“You have to separate your colours,” Stiles says slowly. “Have you never done this before?”

Derek’s silent, slipping his wrist out of Stiles’ hand and standing stock still. “Not really,” he mutters after a few minutes, looking embarrassed. “My family- we were sort of well-off so there was always someone there to do this kind of stuff for us.”

Stiles nods in understanding, finally starting to get why this has seemed like such a transition for Derek. “You’ve never lived by yourself before, have you?” he guesses.

Derek shakes his head. “I was able to commute from home when I was in college and Kate and I had a maid.”

“Alright,” Stiles says, clapping his hands together. “It’s time to show you all the little tricks of the trade I learned in college to make it through the week without any parents around to help me survive.”

Derek gives him a tentative smile and waits for instructions.

“So first,” Stiles starts. “You gotta separate your washes into whites, darks and colours so you don’t end up with like, pink underwear.” Stiles explains, grinning when he notices the way Derek’s ears turn pink.

“I can do that,” Derek nods before looking down at the change he just dug out of his pocket. “I’m gonna need more coins though.”

“I got you covered, buddy,” Stiles reassures him, clapping him on the back. “You start separating those out; I’ll get us some quarters.”

Derek nods again, smiling more genuinely this time, “Thanks Stiles.”

Stiles feels his heart flutter in his chest at the way Derek says his name but he pushes it aside and heads for the change machine – he can fantasise about it later. He’s scooping the coins into his hands a moment later when he hears a commotion at the washer where he left Derek.

He turns around to see a tiny middle-aged woman yelling at Derek and Derek looking completely terrified. He quickly shoves the coins in his pocket and hurries over.

“I’m sorry, is there a problem here?” he asks, sidling up to Derek and trying to act like a comforting weight beside him.

“This is _my_ washer,” the lady says snippily, shooting daggers at Derek and gesturing to the machine Derek had been loading his clothes into.

“Uh okay. Did you leave your detergent on top of it?” Stiles asks because the detergent rule is sacred.

“No!” she huffs indignantly.

“Okay, were your clothes in it?”

“No,” she repeats begrudgingly, looking like she’s swallowed a lemon.

“So then how was my friend here supposed to know you were using it?” he asks, folding his arms haughtily. _Take that, lady_.

“I always use this washer,” she insists and yeah, Stiles is about fifty shades of done with this argument.

“Alright, look lady. I don’t know if you have some special connection to this washer or something but we’re using it so you can either wait ‘til we’re finished or pick another one.”

Stiles nudges Derek subtly, prompting him to fold his arms imperiously too and tries not to grin to himself – he can’t ruin the façade now.

The woman harrumphs and stomps off with her basket in hand and Stiles spins around gleefully.

“That was awesome, dude,” Stiles cheers, jostling Derek’s shoulder. “You just had your first fight with a New Yorker!”

“You did most of the talking,” Derek mumbles embarrassedly.

“Still, it’s character building.” He watches Derek for a second, the way his shoulders are drawn in like he’s trying to be as unimposing as possible. “Hey, don’t worry about her. Assholes exist, you get used to it.”

Derek nods, still looking kind of dejected so Stiles bumps their shoulders together. “Come on, let’s get these loads done.”

They sit on the washers while they wait for them to finish even though they’re not really supposed to but the girl at the counter looks far more interested in her magazine than them.

“So I know this is all a really big change for you,” Stiles says. “But do you like New York at least?”

“I mean, I guess?” Derek shrugs. “It helps knowing Scott’s here and Allison’s basically my knight in shining armour for getting me away from Kate. The rest of your friends are really nice too.”

“And what about me?” Stiles teases, feigning offense and making Derek huff out a laugh. It’s incredible and adorable and endearing and Stiles is so fucking gone on him, this is the worst.

“You’re not so bad,” Derek concedes.

“Hey I just fought your laundry battle for you!” Stiles protests.

Derek grins, shoulder-checking him. “My hero,” he drawls.

“That’s right!” Stiles nods seriously, biting his lip to stop himself from laughing. “Hey, you get your confidence up and a couple more encounters like that and you’ll totally be fending off the old ladies without any assistance from me.”

“One can only hope,” Derek replies sardonically.

“See! You’re already getting snarky,” Stiles exclaims delightedly.

Derek laughs, shaking his head ruefully like he can’t understand why Stiles amuses him – a lot of people tend to have that reaction.

“Anyway, speaking of laundry, I think yours is done, dude,” Stiles says, nodding to the washers that’ve stopped rumbling underneath them.

They hop off the machines and Derek opens the lid of the first washer nervously. Stiles peers over his shoulder, watching him pull out the clothes.

“Looks like a success to me,” Stiles observes.

“I did the laundry,” Derek says reverently as if he’d just created a masterpiece.

“Yeah you did, buddy,” Stiles chuckles.

Derek looks up from the clothes in his hands, over his shoulder to meet Stiles’ gaze. “I- thank you. For helping me.”

“Any time,” Stiles says absently, getting a little bit too lost in Derek’s stupid multi-coloured eyes.

“Do you wanna maybe- get a coffee or something after this?” Derek asks suddenly, a kind of guarded hopefulness in his expression.

Stiles thinks he might pull a muscle in his neck, he nods so quickly. “Definitely.”

Derek’s entire face lights up and Stiles thinks, yeah, this could be something.


	2. The One With All The Poker

Poker night used to be a thing Derek would play with Boyd and Isaac - and sometimes Jackson but he tends to block those games out of his memory – to unwind after a long week. It was just supposed to be fun, nothing serious.

Of course, then Stiles found out and he wanted in and then everybody _else_  wanted in so now there’s nine of them squished around the kitchen table in Scott and Stiles’ apartment as Derek deals out the cards.

“Alright, the game is Texas Hold ‘Em, everyone know how to play?” he asks.

There’re nods and murmurs of assent as Stiles rolls his eyes and snaps, “Just deal the cards, Hale.”

Stiles is a little on edge since he got fired from his last job. He’s been looking for another job for a few weeks now but so far no one’s called. Tonight he’s expecting an important call from some magazine that he’s  _dying_  to work for. It’s why he’s been kind of terse with all of them but probably none more so than Derek. It kind of feels like it used to between them – before they were friends but were still forced to spend time together. Derek’s a little less like to snap back now though.

The whole being secretly head over heels in love with Stiles thing is only half the reason.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing, Stiles,” he replies drily, bristling when Stiles rolls his eyes again and sweeps his own cards up off the table.

“Alright, first round everybody in,” Boyd pitches in, eyeing Stiles and Derek warily.

Everyone throws in a chip and the game starts.

It’s the most intense game of poker Derek’s ever played. When he plays with Boyd and Isaac half the time they’re just playing for Skittles and when they do play for money none of them ever win more than five bucks.

Tonight they’re playing for money and Stiles is relentless, refusing to fold with his pokerface seamlessly in place. Derek can’t even tell if he’s lying because the tense set of his shoulders hasn’t let up since before the game even started.

The others have the sense to bow out pretty quickly – especially when he and Stiles start trading barbs. Derek doesn’t even mean to! But Stiles is getting under his skin quickly.

Eventually it boils down to just the two of them and Derek watches Stiles uncertainly, trying to get a read on what kind of hand he has. Just as Stiles is about to make his play the phone rings and he bolts out of his seat, racing over to answer it.

“Hello?” Stiles asks breathlessly. Derek watches him pace back and forth nervously, chewing on his lip out of habit. “Yes, this is him.”

There’s a pause and everyone waits but then Stiles’ face falls.

“Oh,” he says blankly before smiling weakly. “No, yeah, I totally understand. Don’t worry…Yeah, thanks for the opportunity.”

Stiles hangs up the phone, setting it down and bracing his hands on the countertop. He closes his eyes, inhaling and exhaling deeply once and Derek wants nothing more than to go over there and put his arms around him but then Stiles is turning back around and plastering a smile on his face.

“Stiles we don’t have to keep playing-“ Derek offers.

“I want to,” he cuts in, taking his seat again and clearing his throat as he looks steadfastly down at his cards.

Derek frowns, exchanging a concerned look with Scott while Stiles isn’t watching.

“I’m all in,” Stiles says suddenly, shoving all his chips into the centre of the table.

Derek stares at him in surprise but Stiles only raises an eyebrow. Derek looks down at his cards. It’s a good hand, probably the best one he’s had all night, so he pushes his piles of chips into the centre of the table. “All in.”

Derek pauses, waiting for Stiles to show his hand but then Stiles is turning away from him to Scott’s who’s standing behind him. “Get me my wallet,” he requests quietly.

“Stiles, that’s not-“

“What? You afraid to raise the stakes a little bit higher?” Stiles inquires, goading Derek with a smirk. It’s not his normal one though – Stiles is upset and trying to cover it up.

“Fine,” Derek sighs, gesturing with hand for Stiles to go ahead.

Scott comes back with Stiles wallet, crouching down and quietly telling him there’s nothing in it. Stiles freezes for a half a second before saying, “Then get me  _your_ wallet.”

Scott digs his wallet out of his pocket and hands it to Stiles who shuffles through it before pulling out a couple of crumpled bills. “I raise you twenty,” he says evenly.

Derek doesn’t take his eyes off Stiles as he reaches into his pocket and takes out his wallet. He throws a twenty down on the table and nods to Stiles. “What’ve you got?”

Stiles hesitates, looking uncertain for the first time all night. Derek gives him a small, encouraging smile and Stiles almost smiles back, setting down his cards. “Straight flush,” he declares, looking at Derek nervously.

Derek glances at his own cards before putting them down on the table face down. “You won,” he says simply.

Stiles starts, gaping at him. “I won?” he asks incredulously.

“You won,” Derek confirms, smiling slightly.

“I won!” Stiles exclaims, jumping up out of his seat and dancing excitedly with Scott.

“What’d you really have?” Boyd asks, dropping down into the seat next to Derek.

“I told you he won,” Derek insists.

Isaac slides into the chair on the other side of him and picks up the cards. He looks up at Derek with wide eyes. “Dude, you totally could’ve won this,” he whispers in shock.

Derek shrugs, looking over at Stiles chattering enthusiastically with Lydia. “I know. But look how happy he is.”

Isaac rolls his eyes exasperatedly and Boyd shakes his head with a grin, clapping Derek’s shoulder. “You’ve got it bad, man.”

*

It’s a few hours later when everyone’s either left or on their way – Isaac leaves with Boyd and Erica, Jackson and Lydia wander across the hall not long after and Allison and Scott give a sleepy goodnight before disappearing into Scott’s room. Derek’s about to leave when Stiles calls him back.

“Derek, wait.”

When he turns around Stiles is standing by the kitchen table, turning a couple of the poker chips over in his hand. He looks up and smiles, holding a handful of them out to him.

“What’s this?” Derek asks curiously, moving closer with some trepidation.

“I know you had the winning hand.”

“I didn’t-“ Derek immediately tries to protest but Stiles only laughs softly, shaking his head.

“It’s okay. I don’t know why you did it but thank you.” Stiles takes a hesitant step closer, picking up Derek’s hand and setting the chips in them.

“I don’t get it,” Derek says hoarsely, his throat feels dry as he watches Stiles push Derek’s palm closed over the chips and then settle his own hand over it.

“This is your cut of the winnings,” Stiles replies quietly.

“But-“

“I thought maybe you could use it to go out with me sometime,” he adds softly, meeting Derek’s gaze steadily.

Derek isn’t sure he’s breathing right now. Did Stiles just- “I think I’d like that,” Derek finds himself whispering and Stiles’ face breaks out into a genuine smile.

He leans in close, so close Derek _definitely_  isn’t breathing right now and brushes their lips together. It’s chaste and it barely lasts a second but Derek feels it all the way to his toes.

“Night Derek,” he murmurs when he pulls back, smile soft around the edges.

“Night Stiles.”


	3. The One With the List

“I can’t believe you kissed Stiles!” Erica exclaims, smacking him upside the head while also looking extremely proud.

“What was it like?” Laura gushes, eyes wide with excitement like she’s ready to hang on her every word.

He considers brushing her off, telling her to stop being so ridiculous but he can’t help the almost dreamy sigh he breathes out when he admits, “It was everything I hoped it would be.”

Laura downright squeals and this time Derek does roll his eyes, even if he  _is_  trying not to smile.

“Yes this is all very sweet,” Cora intones, sounding bored. “But are we forgetting Derek is still dating Jennifer?”

The room goes silent and the three girls regard him with varying looks of pity.

“I know,” Derek huffs. Because he does know. For the past twelve hours all he’s been thinking about is the fact that he cheated on Jennifer – well, it’s all he’s been able to think about when he’s not thinking about Stiles’ lips pressed against his.

“You have to choose, Derek,” Erica chastens gently.

“How?” he asks. He really doesn’t know how to pick. He’s always wanted Stiles, for as long as he can remember. But Stiles didn’t feel for him like that. Or at least that’s what he’d thought. And Jen, she was normal and sweet and always honest with him and he really did care about her…

“Pros and cons list?” Laura suggests. Erica nods immediately, digging a notepad and pen out of the drawer underneath the counter she’d been leaning against.

Cora slides the notepad over to herself, flipping it open and tearing out a sheet. On one side she writes Stiles’ name and divides it into two columns – one pros, one cons. She does the same on the other side for Jennifer.

“Okay, go,” she tells him.

“Uh…well, Jennifer’s caring?” he suggests and watches Cora write it down. “And she’s stable, y’know? Like I could have a perfectly ordinary life with her.”

Erica purses her lips and raises an eyebrow. “Is that what you want though?”

“Sure,” Derek nods faintly even though she looks dubious.

“What about pros for Stiles?” Laura asks.

“He’s- he’s been my constant for so long, I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t have him in my life,” he answers absently, lost in a million memories, an eternity of  _Stiles._

Cora’s eyes soften and she writes it down.

“And he’s always been able to make me laugh, even when no one else could or stopped trying. He never did.” Derek feels his throat catch and promptly ignores it. “He’s loyal too; unbelievably so. I need someone like that.”

“Any cons?” Erica asks gently.

Derek falters, trying to think. “Well, he can be loud…and abrasive and  _infuriating_  but-“

“Derek,” Laura says slowly. “You’re not really making it sound like a con.”

“I…”

“How about a con for Jennifer?” Cora says quickly. Probably because she thinks Derek’s going to get highly emotional and she can’t deal with that kind of thing.

Derek is silent for a long time, considering all of Jennifer’s annoying habits but ultimately there’s only one con that carries any weight. “She’s not Stiles,” he says, voice rough before clearing his throat and meeting the girls’ gazes.

Erica gives him a supportive smile and Cora’s is no less encouraging. Laura reaches over and squeezes his hand. “I think you made your choice.”

*

Breaking up with Jennifer is awful and awkward but he feels like a weight’s been lifted when he leaves her apartment.

*

He texts Stiles on his way home, asking if they can talk. It means Stiles is already waiting for him when he gets back to the apartment, reading a- oh god.

“Stiles,” Derek says carefully, closing the door gently behind him.

Stiles looks up from the page, face a mixture of hurt and livid. “I’m abrasive?” he asks incredulously, voice shaking.

“ _Stiles_ ,” Derek pleads. He just needs to explain-

“And infuriating?” he demands, eyes shining with tears that haven’t fallen yet. “What the hell is this, Derek?”

“I- Laura, Erica and Cora- they were helping figure out what I wanted-“

“By listing my flaws?” Stiles guesses, getting up off the stool and making his way to the door.

Derek moves in front of him, blocking his way and Stiles glares.

“They weren’t- they’re not flaws to me!” he insists. “And there’s the other stuff-“ he adds more quietly. “The pros. What about all of those?”

Stiles’ jaw ticks like he’d forgotten about that part and doesn’t want Derek reminding him because it’ll deplete his anger.

“Did you see what my con against Jennifer was?” he asks softly, looking down at Stiles’ hands where the paper is scrunched up in them.

Stiles slowly unfurls the paper, turning it over and scanning it quickly. “She’s not Stiles,” he reads aloud before his breath catches and he looks up at Derek with a questioning look.

“I just came back from breaking up with her,” Derek murmurs. “I called you over here to tell you I love you. I pick you. I choose you. All of you. Even the parts that might seem like they’re bad, they’re not because they’re part of you and you’re the one I want. You’ve always been the one I want so- so if you don’t want me back or you can’t forgive this or you think last night was a mistake, I understand. And I won’t try to stop you if you walk out the door right now.” His hands are shaking by the time he finishes and meeting Stiles’ gaze physically  _hurts_  but he refuses to look away.

“…You don’t think they’re flaws?” Stiles asks quietly a few moments later.

“I like that you’re loud,” Derek sighs. “You’re the only one I like filling up the silence with. And abrasive is my type, okay? Besides it’s not like I can talk with that one.” Derek smiles hesitantly and Stiles huffs a laugh, lips curving up slightly.

“And you’re infuriating because- because it scares me how much I want you,” he admits. “Because I’ve never wanted anyone this much and it scares the hell out of me and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Well, you could start by kissing me.” Stiles tries for casual but his voice is thick with tears.

Derek stares at him beseechingly because he wants to be sure he’s sure but Stiles only nods. That’s all Derek needs to surge forward and kiss him. Derek pours everything into it, tries to convey everything he feels with the press of his lips. When Stiles presses back with just as much fervency he thinks he gets it.

“I love you,” Stiles whispers when he breaks the kiss, his forehead thunking heavily against Derek’s. “God, I really do.”

“I love you too,” Derek tells him as earnestly as he possibly can, replacing his forehead to place a kiss on Stiles’ temple.

“So we’re doing this?” Stiles asks, a bit of anticipation creeping in to his voice. “You and me. For the long haul. The real deal?”

Derek feels like he can barely breathe when he nods, “We’re doing this.”


	4. The One With The Triplets

“What happened?! Did I miss it?!” Stiles comes racing through the doors of the waiting room and Derek rolls his eyes, setting down the frankly terrifying magazine about childbirth that he’d been reading out of sheer horror and morbid curiosity.

“No you didn’t miss it, Stiles,” he says patiently. “Allison’s having triplets. Even if you’d missed one, there’d still be another two to go.”

Stiles bends over, propping his hands on his knees and nodding through his gasping breaths. “Right,” he pants.

Derek narrows his eyes, “How far did you run?”

“Just up the stairs,” he huffs, standing up straight again. “The elevator took too long.”

Derek rolls his eyes again as Stiles collapses into the seat next to him. “You need to work out more.”

Stiles snorts. “Right. I’ve seen you at the gym, buddy, and there’s no way in  _hell_  that I’m coming with you.”

“You don’t seem to mind all the benefits of me working out when we’re-“

Stiles silences him with a look that either says, “Stop talking about s-e-x in a baby ward,” or, “Shut up idiot. Someone’s gonna hear you.”

“In fact,” Derek continues, just to piss him off. “I seem to remember you praising God for my back muscles-“

“Okay!” Stiles cries loudly, scowling when Derek grins at him. “You’ve made your point, shut up.”

Derek smirks to himself smugly as Stiles shuffles around in the chair next to him, trying to get comfortable. “So how long do you think we’ll be here?” Stiles asks. He sounds bored already. “And where’s everyone else?”

“Labour can last days,” Derek shrugs. “And Lydia and Scott are in with Allison and the nurse right now. Erica’s on her way.”

Stiles sighs exaggeratedly, tipping his head back over the back of the chair before picking it up again and giving Derek a speculative look, lips tugging up in a smirk. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how noticeable would it be if we slipped away for a quickie while we wait?”

Derek opens his mouth to answer but no words come out. Until Stiles waggles his eyebrows ridiculously and suddenly Derek’s brain’s not so stuck anymore.

“You’re seriously thinking about sex when your best friend is about to have his first child?”

“And second and third,” Stiles adds dutifully. “But yes, I’m thinking about sex. Maybe it’s the maternity wing. Maybe I’m broody.”

“You’re broody?” Derek deadpans. “You realise it’s physically impossible for me to get you pregnant, right? Or vice versa.”

Stiles looks like rolling his eyes wouldn’t be a strong enough way to show Derek just how exasperated he is with him right now. “I know, asshole.”

Derek watches him for a second as his mind wanders down a path he did  _not_  give it permission to go. A path that has Stiles and babies and wedding rings and a house with a porch swing and basically every fantasy Derek would never admit to out loud.

Maybe Stiles is actually hinting at something here. Sure their relationship is new and no one knows about it yet but they’ve been friends for a third of their lives and they’re both over twenty-five there’s nothing wrong with thinking about the future, right?

“So do you actually want kids?” he attempts to ask casually.

Stiles gives him incredulous look. “Uh I guess? Like yeah sure, in the future. But come on Derek, you and I are just goofing around. I was kidding.”

“Goofing around,” Derek says faintly, feeling as if the world is pretty much crumbling down around him. “Right.” He should’ve known all Stiles wanted out of this was to mess around. He should’ve known Stiles didn’t want anything serious.

Before Stiles can say anything about the look on Derek’s face Erica rushes in. “Did I miss it?” she gasps.

“Still no babies,” Stiles informs her as she drops in to the chair on the other side of Derek.

She sighs in relief, unwinding the scarf from around her neck. “Thank god, Lydia would’ve killed me if I was late because I was flirting with the cute doctor.”

“Cute doctor?” Derek repeats, raising an eyebrow even though he’s completely and utterly unsurprised.

She turns, beaming at him. “Cute doctor and his  _friend_ ,” she emphasises, winking suggestively at Derek. “His name is Boyd and he’s _so_  handsome.” She actually lets out a dreamy sigh like she’s just stepped out of a Disney movie. “He gave me his number _and_  he told me his friend Isaac, aka the cherubic nurse with the curly blond hair, is also available.”

Derek stares at her, confused as to why she’s telling him about single guys until- oh right, she thinks he’s single. And hell, maybe he is since Stiles apparently doesn’t think they’re anything special.

“ _Well?”_  Erica demands, practically bursting with anticipation. “Can I take you to meet him?”

Derek throws a glance at Stiles, who’s entire face has shut down. His expression is unreadable, making it even harder for Derek to decide. He wants Stiles to give him something, tell him not go with a look and he won’t. But Stiles remains inscrutable so he turns back to Erica with a smile.

“Lead the way.”

Erica squeals, bounding up off her seat and pulling Derek with her. “Stiles tell Lydia we’re gone to the vending machines if she comes out!” she calls over her shoulder, dragging Derek through the double doors.

Derek just about hears his confused, “Okay.”

*

Isaac is nice. But Derek’s is pretty sure even if wasn’t head over heels for Stiles they wouldn’t click regardless.

Still, when Derek walks back to the waiting room with him – talking mostly about Boyd and Erica’s imminent descent into couple’s paradise – Stiles gives them a sour look, glaring daggers at Isaac even though he hasn’t even seen or met Stiles yet.

“Stiles,” Derek says, giving him a confused look and leading Isaac over to the chairs where Stiles is still sitting. “This is Isaac, the nurse Erica was talking about.”

“Hey man, nice to meet you,” Isaac says politely, offering his hand.

Stiles smiles but it looks more like a grimace and shakes his hand begrudgingly. “Hey,” he mutters.

Isaac looks back at Derek, brows furrowed, but before Derek can say anything Isaac’s beeper goes off. He checks it, already heading for the door. “I gotta go. Nice to meet you guys!”

As soon as Isaac’s disappeared Derek sits back down next to Stiles, eyeing him curiously.

After a few minutes of silence Stiles speaks up. “Are you really gonna date that guy?” he asks grumpily.

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, even though he’s ten thousand percent sure he  _won’t_.

“I figure if I’m just goofing around with you, why couldn’t I goof around with him?” Derek adds, barely managing to keep the petulant tone out of his voice.

Suddenly realisation dawns on Stiles’ face and then he’s grabbing Derek’s hand, pulling him up off the chair and tugging him away from the waiting room and around the corner where there’s no one around. “Listen, what I said earlier-“

“I get it,” Derek talks over him. “This is just sex to you-“

“It’s  _not_ ,” Stiles cuts in, giving him a pleading look. “Derek, it’s so not. You’re- fuck, you know I’ve never really had a serious relationship before and this is overwhelming for me okay?”

“You think we’re in a serious relationship?” Derek asks quietly, feeling a swell of warmth in his chest when Stiles takes his hand, twining their fingers together.

“Hell yeah, dude,” he laughs lightly, looking up at Derek from underneath his lashes and that’s  _not fair_ – he knows Derek melts at that look. “I wanna be in this for the long haul. But sometimes I’m gonna get scared and say stupid shit so please just call me out on it so we can talk and then  I don’t have to get all jealous and be a dick to innocent nurses.”

“You were jealous?” Derek feels his lips tug up in a smile when Stiles rolls his eyes exasperatedly, sliding his free arm around Derek’s back.

“Well duh,” Stiles scoffs. “Do you think it’s an enjoyable experience for me to see you flirting with people who aren’t me?”

“I wasn’t flirting,” he snorts, wrapping an arm around Stiles’ waist and reeling him in. “You know you’re the only one I wanna be with, right?” he adds seriously. “You’re the one I wanna do all the important stuff with.”

Stiles beams at him, leaning in for a kiss when they hear someone yelling in the waiting area.

“ _I have a daughter!!”_

When they race back around the corner Scott’s standing in the middle of the room, arms up in the air in victory, chest heaving.

“Congratulations!” Stiles yells, breaking away from Derek and running over to hug Scott.

“Thanks.” Scott looks completely out of it before he blinks rapidly for a few seconds and then seems to remember he has two more children and a probably murderous wife waiting for him through the double doors. “I’ll be back!” he exclaims, pulling out of Stiles’ grip and running away.

Stiles laughs, turning back to Derek with an amused grin.

“How’s it feel to be an uncle?” Derek asks him, making him sit back down on the waiting room chairs so they can surreptitiously hold hands until Scott comes back.

“Almost as surreal as calling you my boyfriend,” Stiles replies casually – or, it’s casual until he meets Derek’s gaze and his whole face lights up as he squeezes Derek’s hand.

Stiles is his boyfriend. Yeah, he likes the sound of that.

 


	5. The One With All The Kissing

Stiles is sitting at the table with Derek, Scott, Allison and Lydia, having breakfast and discussing their plans for Friday night when his phone buzzes. He glances down at the text absently as he takes a sip of his coffee before he sees the time at the top of his phone screen. He almost chokes on his coffee, slamming the mug back down on the table and jumping out of his seat.

“Shit is that the time?!” he asks frantically, racing off to grab the box of case files he’d left on the coffee table. “I’m late for work!” and he’s pretty sure he just burned his tongue. Fantastic.

He darts back over to the table, bending down as Derek obligingly lifts his head from where he’d been reading the paper – dork – to peck Derek’s lips. He’s almost out the door when he realises what he just did and freezes on the spot.

Oh no.

Slowly, he turns on his heel to see Derek frozen in his seat, much like Stiles is, and the other three staring at Stiles in complete bewilderment.

Never let it be said that Stiles is good under pressure because what happens next is just- yeah, it’s bad.

He drops the box on the counter by the door and heads back to the table.

“Scotty! My main man!” he exclaims, clapping his hands down on Scott’s shoulders and smacking a kiss on his lips – it’s like kissing his brother; he might have to wash his mouth out after that. When he lets go Scott’s gaping at him, his eyes like saucers.

“Lydia!” He spins around, leaning down. He manages to peck her lips only because she seems totally in shock but after 1.2 seconds she comes back to herself and shoves him away, her eyebrows practically raised to her hairline.

His about to move to Allison when she puts her hand up to stop him. “I’m good. Thanks.”

Stiles nods in acceptance and heads back to the counter. ”Welp! See you guys later!” With that, he turns back to the door and runs out of there like a shot.

*

“Lydia’s considering beating you with your own baseball bat if you try and kiss her again,” Derek tells him conversationally later that night when they’re sacked out on Derek’s bed.

Stiles groans, letting go of Derek’s hand that’s slung over his shoulder to turn and bury his head against Derek’s chest. “That was such a disaster. I panicked.”

“I noticed,” Derek hums. Stiles picks his head up, narrowing his eyes at the amused smirk on Derek’s face.

“Shut up,” he grouses. “I had to do something.”

“I told them you picked it up in London,” Derek adds. “Scott’s worried you’re gonna start doing it all the time because, and I quote, while he loves you, the whole point of us going to London was so he could kiss one person for the rest of his life and that’s not you.”

Stiles huffs a laugh, dropping his head back down on Derek’s chest. “Could’ve been worse,” he sighs. “’M sorry I kissed them,” he mumbles a few minutes later.

Derek’s hand stills from where it’d been running up and down Stiles’ arm and Stiles sits up to meet his gaze.

“You’re the only person I wanna kiss,” Stiles continues, chewing on his lip in a nervous habit because while he doesn’t _think_ Derek’s mad, he’s still kind of anxious. They’re only just getting used to this whole relationship thing.

Derek’s face softens and he leans forward to capture Stiles’ lips in a chaste kiss. “I’m not mad,” he murmurs, leaning his forehead against Stiles’ for a second before pecking his lips once more and letting Stiles go back to using his chest as a pillow.

“Just so you know,” Derek says after a while. “You’re the only person I wanna kiss too.”


	6. The One With The Red Sweater

Lydia’s always prided herself on being perceptive. She might command everyone’s attention as she sees fit but she’s also a good observer.

Which is why when she’s sitting in the coffee shop with Scott, watching Stiles turn down the cute barista she knows for a fact he had a crush on not two months ago, she starts to notice a pattern.

“Do you think it’s odd that Stiles hasn’t been on a date in over a month?” she asks idly.

Scott looks up from his coffee, brow furrowed in confusion. “Not really? Maybe he’s just going through a dry spell.”

“I’ve seen him be hit on more times than I can count in the last month and not once has he taken someone up on the offer,” she counters, eyes sliding from Stiles to fix Scott with a look.

“You think he’s already seeing someone?” Scott surmises.

“Possibly,” she hums, quietening down when Stiles starts to make his way over. She lets Stiles pull them into a conversation, nods along and debates with him as he talks about the merits of the various ingredients of his coffee order but she doesn’t miss the considering look Scott is giving his best friend for the rest of the hour.

*

“I think you’re right,” Scott tells her when he bursts into her and Allison’s apartment a few hours later, collapsing into the seat next to Allison.

“Why?” Lydia asks, setting down the magazine she’d been flicking through and raising a perfectly arched eyebrow.

“Wait- catch me up,” Allison interrupts. “What’s Lydia right about?”

“Everything, usually,” Lydia smirks as Allison rolls her eyes fondly.

“Lydia thinks Stiles is seeing someone,” Scott explains.

“And why do you think I’m right?” Lydia repeats.

“A few weeks ago some guy stayed over,” Scott says. “I was over here with Allison so I never saw who it was but- hang on.”

Scott hops out of his seat and rushes back out the front door. He comes back a few minutes later holding a maroon-coloured sweater. “Whoever he was, he left this.”

Lydia eyes the sweater critically, it looks familiar but she can’t-

“Oh my god,” Allison gasps. “I know who owns that sweater.”

*

They meet Danny in town. When the three of them march up to him outside the coffee shop he looks extremely confused.

“Have you seen Stiles lately?” Lydia asks, cutting straight to the chase.

Danny raises his eyebrows like that was the last thing he expected her to ask. “Uh I see him in work sometimes when our departments are working together, why?”

“But outside of work?” Allison presses.

“Not really?” Danny replies uncertainly. “The last time was probably Lydia’s birthday party, I guess. You know I’m not in this part of the city much.”

“Danny,” Scott says solemnly, reaching into Allison’s bag and taking out the shirt. “I believe this is _your_ maroon sweater with thumbholes?”

Danny gives him a completely bewildered look before slowly unzipping his jacket. “Uh no? _This_ is my maroon sweater with thumbholes,” he says, gesturing to his own sweater that looks exactly the same as the one in Scott’s hand.

Which- oh. Alright then.

*

“Maybe we don’t know the guy,” Allison suggests.

“Who even says red-sweater guy is for sure the one he’s dating anyway?” Scott asks.

“Who else have you seen him with in the last month?” Lydia argues.

“I technically didn’t seem with red-sweater guy either,” Scott reminds her.

“Are we sure he’s actually dating someone though?” Allison questions. “I mean who’s to say that sweater’s not Stiles’?”

“It definitely belongs to someone else,” Scott says certainly. “It’s the wrong size. But she might be right about the not dating thing,” he adds, looking to Lydia for her opinion.

Lydia purses her lips, mulling it over. It’s possible but she’s almost never wrong. “Perhaps they’re not dating,” she concedes. “But maybe Stiles wants them to be.”

“What? Like they had a one night stand and he wants it to be more?”

“When Stiles had a crush on me, who else did he date?” Lydia asks knowingly.

“Okay but nobody was really throwing themselves at him in high school,” Scott points out.

“Erica had a crush on him,” Lydia lists. “Caitlin seemed more than willing. He could’ve slept with Heather but he didn’t until months later when he’d finally moved on.”

“I think you could be right,” Allison nods. “I mean, Scott lives with him. He would’ve noticed if someone was staying the night or Stiles didn’t come home.”

“Unless he’s doing it really sneakily and only inviting them over when I spend the night with you,” Scott comments.

“Who knows?” Lydia sighs, eyeing the sweater from where it sits on the counter by the door. She _knows_ she’s seen it before. And not on Danny.

Derek snaps her out of her thoughts by letting himself into the apartment. “Hey,” he says to the room at large before directing his attention to Allison. “Do you have that mythology book your dad was supposed to send you? I’ve hit a snag in my thesis research and I could really use it.”

“Yeah sure,” Allison says, standing up. “Come on, it’s in my room. He sent a couple more with it.”

Lydia absently watches Derek follow Allison into her room and then return a few seconds later with a stack of books. “Tell him I said thanks,” Derek is saying, already making his way back to the front door when he stops, looking down at the sweater on the counter.

“Hey my sweater!” he says in surprise, picking it up. “I’ve been looking for this thing for like a month.” He shrugs and waves a hand behind him before letting himself out but none of them notice because-

 _“Stiles and Derek slept together?!”_ Scott shrieks.

*

*

Stiles’ friends are being weird. He guesses that’s not really that unusual but their weirdness generally doesn’t involve giving him scrutinising looks and a million and one instances of one of them opening their mouths like they want to ask him something before clapping it shut again.

The only person who isn’t being weird is Derek. Except he kind of wishes Derek would act weird so Stiles could confront him and maybe they could have the feelings talk he’s been trying to work himself up to for the past month.

He lasts about two days before he cracks. “Seriously,  _what’s wrong?”_  he huffs, looking meaningfully from Scott to Lydia to Allison.

Derek frowns because he clearly hasn’t noticed the strange behaviour.

“Nothing’s wrong, Stiles,” Lydia says in a voice that’s far too casual.

“Why would anything be wrong?” Scott pitches in, his voice just an octave higher than usual.

Allison, very intelligently, doesn’t say anything at all.

“Bullshit,” Stiles says, spearing a piece of chicken on his fork and then pointing it at Scott. “You’re hiding something.”

“No I’m not,” Scott replies unassumingly but Stiles can see his internal panic plain as day.

“I learned to tell when you’re lying before we could even tie our shoelaces, what is it?”

Scott sighs and slumps down in his chair, looking to Lydia for help.

Lydia meets his gaze for a moment before her eyes drift to Allison and they have a silent conversation. After some eyebrow raises and nodding, Lydia levels Stiles – and Derek, he notes confusedly – with a look.

“We know you slept together,” Lydia says evenly.

Derek chokes on his noodles while Stiles just stares at her, mouth gaping open and full of half-chewed schezwan chicken.

“Close your mouth,” Lydia commands, wrinkling her nose distastefully.

Stiles blinks rapidly, trying to come up with a reply. “You- you  _know?”_  he splutters out after the silence stretches too long.

“How the hell do you know?” Derek demands, apparently after finding his voice again.

“You picked up your sweater the other day,” Allison says quietly. “Scott said he found it in his and Stiles’ apartment after some guy stayed over.”

“How do you know that wasn’t a completely innocent sleepover?” Stiles asks indignantly, figuring denial is probably the way to go right now.

“Because of the look on both your faces when we just said we know,” Scott answers simply.

Stiles scowls, hesitantly sliding his gaze to Derek to try and gauge his reaction. Derek meets his eyes fleetingly but his face is carefully blank – something he’s frustratingly good at doing and utilises far too often.

Stiles can feel the other three staring at them and he really doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to handle this situation.

Luckily he doesn’t have to because Allison – bless her heart – changes the subject even though he can tell all of them are dying to know what happened between him and Derek.

No one brings it up for the rest of the night but Stiles can feel the weight of Derek’s eyes on him for the next two hours.

*

They’ve left Allison and Lydia’s apartment, he and Scott are about to head into their own apartment across the hall and Derek is about to go downstairs so he can cross the street to get to his own apartment building when Stiles takes a leap of faith.

“Derek can I talk to you for a second?”

Scott gives him a tiny nod of understanding and an encouraging smile before disappearing into their apartment and Derek pauses about a foot away from him, waiting.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he says because he figures that’s the best place to start. “I didn’t even realise Scott knew someone had stayed over that night. He’d been at Allison’s.”

“It’s my fault,” Derek shrugs. “I basically told them when I announced it was my sweater right in front of them.”

“I should’ve given it back. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

Derek shrugs again and this is awkward – so awkward and not at all how Stiles had planned on this going.

“I- can I ask what that night was for you?” Stiles asks stiltedly, hoping his voice isn’t as needy as it sounds in his head.

“What d’you mean?” Derek asks but he’s stalling. He knows what Stiles means, he’s just shit at talking about his feelings.

“Was it comfort?” Stiles asks. “Just a moment of weakness because you were depressed that Boyd and Erica were getting married and you felt lonely? Was it just supposed to be a bit of fun? Something you needed to get out of your system? Was it…more?”

Derek stays silent for a long time, his face not betraying anything, and the longer Stiles waits the more he can feel himself wanting to run away. But he doesn’t. He waits because if nothing else, he’s gonna make sure he gets an answer.

“It was more,” Derek says eventually, quietly. A flicker of hope in his eyes shrouded in wariness.

When his words finally sink in Stiles feels himself smiling impossibly wide. He wants to laugh when he sees the look of surprise on Derek’s face as he takes in his facial expression.

He thinks he says something before he closes the distance between them, thinks it’s something stupid like, “Thank god.” But he doesn’t really notice because Derek’s arms wrap around him like a reflex and then they’re kissing and Stiles has missed this so much.

He only got this for one night but he’s missed it. He’s not quite sure how he even lasted this long without it.

Derek sighs against his mouth and Stiles gets the distinct feeling that he’s falling; headfirst, into something he’s hopelessly unprepared for but he doesn’t care. Because when he stops kissing Derek long enough to tell him, “it was more for me too,” Derek gets this awed kind of smile on his face that Stiles feels right down to his knees. And he wants to capture it, treasure that smile and be the only who can ever make Derek look like that.

He’s not scared when Derek’s leans back in to capture his lips in another kiss because he might not know what this means or what they’ll become but he does know one thing.

It’s something more.

 

 


	7. The One Where Rachel Finds Out

Scott lets himself into his and Stiles’ apartment, shuffling around and closing the door with his hip so he doesn’t drop any of the patient files from the animal clinic. Just as he manages to click the door shut the phone starts ringing and, not seeing or hearing Stiles anywhere in the apartment, he hastily tries to drop the files on the kitchen table without anything spilling out of the manila folders and dashes over to grab the phone.

He’s about to say hello when he hears not one, but  _two_  voices on the other line.

“Hey, you.” That’s Stiles’ voice and it sounds…teasing,  _flirty_ , but also familiar like he was expecting the call. Scott didn’t know Stiles was seeing anyone?

“Hey.”

Holy shit. That’s  _Derek_. Scott clutches the phone to his ear, clapping a hand over his mouth to keep from saying something since Stiles is obviously in his room.

“So are you actually coming over tonight?” Derek complains.

“I told you I’m sorry about last night,” Stiles sighs. “Scott roped me into a Saw marathon. He knew I had nowhere to be. What was I supposed to say?”

“That you had a date?” Derek suggests.

“But then he’d start asking questions that I can’t answer without his werewolf hearing kicking in.”

“Haven’t you learned to lie to him by now?”

Scott would be supremely offended if he couldn’t catch the teasing hint in Derek’s voice. It helps when Stiles replies with, “Shut up, you know I hate sneaking around behind his back like this,” too.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Derek says and it sounds tender, affectionate even. Scott is so confused right now.

“But you  _are_  coming over, right?” Derek presses a second later.

“Yes,” Stiles huffs with a laugh. “I’ll just tell Scott I’m doing laundry or something.”

“Oh is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Derek asks and Scott can practically see his smirk and ew. Gross. No.

Stiles laughs so loud, Scott can hear it from the living room even without the phone. “That not do it for you?” he teases. “Want me to be more specific? Want me to tell you how I’m gonna-“

“Oh my god!” Scott yells throwing the phone on the couch in horror. He is  _not_  about to hear Stiles and Derek’s phone sex, he refuses.

Stiles’ bedroom door open as second later and Stiles appears in a robe – oh dear god.

“Scott!” Stiles laughs uneasily. “Didn’t hear you come home.”

“Yeah just got in,” Scott replies, not really sure how to look at Stiles right now without blurting out what he heard. “So um, wanna catch a movie tonight?”

Stiles freezes but he recovers quickly. “Uh can’t. I’ve got tons of laundry to do, dude.”

Scott wrinkles his nose now that he knows what “laundry” is before deciding to have a little fun. “Oh really? Could you do mine too?”

Stiles’ eyes widen and he flounders for an answer. “I- um-“

“It’s just, Doc asked me to go over all these patient files,” he says, gesturing to the pile on the table. “And because I’ve been so swamped I haven’t had time all week so I mean, would you mind?”

“Uh sure,” Stiles answers finally, throwing his eyes heavenward when he thinks Scott’s not looking, as if the world is a cruel, cruel place.

“Great! I’ll go get my stuff ready. You’re the best, dude!” Scott says happily before running into his room and grabbing his laundry bag. He shoves like, half his wardrobe into it and then takes a second to calm himself down and figure out how he’s going to deal with this.

So Stiles and Derek are dating or…sleeping together, he shudders because while he loves them both dearly he really doesn’t need to see or imagine  _that_. But it’s fine, it honestly makes sense in a weird way. He just doesn’t understand why they’re hiding it.

But Stiles sucks at lying to Scott – he said so himself earlier – Scott’ll get him to cave by the end of the day.

He grins to himself, hauling the laundry bag over his shoulder and heading back into the living room. Stiles is fully dressed now and when his eyes land on the bag in Scott’s hand he looks like he’s gonna strangle him.

“You’re so good for doing this, man,” Scott insists, shoving the bag into his hand. “Hey where’s your laundry?”

“Uh…it’s at Derek’s!” he answers quickly, trying way too hard to be nonchalant. “He’s coming too. You know what he’s like; a total caveman, I’m teaching him how to work the washing machine.”

“That’s so sweet of you, dude,” Scott tells him with the most sincere face he can muster. It’s killing him not laugh right now.

“Yep so, I’m gonna- grab Derek and we’ll get to work,” Stiles says awkwardly, heading for the door with Scott’s laundry in hand.

“Have fun! And use protection!”

Stiles walks into the door, spinning around and staring at Scott in horror.

“Y’know those sheet thingys that catch the colour if your clothes run in the wash?” he explains innocently, biting the inside of his cheek so he doesn’t laugh.

“Right,” Stiles says faintly, slipping out the door.

*

Stiles stumbles across the hall to Derek’s apartment in a daze.

Derek’s waiting for him inside, grinning and tugging Stiles close. “You got away quicker than expected,” he says, pleased. He pulls Stiles in for a kiss, breaking it again when he realises something’s up. “What’s wrong and why do you have a bag full of clothes? Pretty sure that’s not how you ask to move in with someone,” he jokes.

“I just had the weirdest conversation with Scott,” he says absently, still running through it in his head. “He was acting so weird and then he gave me his laundry and started talking about protection and- ohmygod he  _knows!”_

 


	8. The One With The East-German Laundry Detergent

Let’s just get it out there. Stiles and Derek are banging.

Everyone knows it.

Except Stiles and Derek don’t know everyone knows it.

Which doesn’t even make sense, like they do realise the majority of their friend group have supernatural sense of smell and can literally scent emotions, right?

The thing is, none of them have a problem with Stiles and Derek being together, least of all _Scott_. And they’re trying to respect their boundaries and not push them to admit things they’re not ready to but well, it’s getting ridiculous.

Like they purposely sit as far away from each other as possible in pack meetings and they’ve changed each other’s screen names on their phones so it’s not obvious who they’re texting. And there was even the very memorable occasion where Stiles had kissed Derek on the cheek when he was leaving the loft to meet his dad so he went around and kissed everyone else in the room to cover it up – even _Jackson_.

So they decide to step in.

“So how are we gonna play this?” Scott asks, eyeing Lydia warily. Ever since high school, keeping secrets from her has kind of been a no-go so she’s taking this pretty seriously.

“Easy. I pretend to seduce Stiles, Derek gets jealous, they admit it,” she says coolly, the picture of blasé.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Scott hedges. “Given, y’know, history?”

“That’s precisely why I _should_ do it,” Lydia replies. “He’s not gonna believe Allison for a second given that she’s been the love of your life for nine years, Erica is very obviously with Boyd and Kira isn’t a good enough liar. I can just pretend I changed my mind.”

“We could just ask them,” Allison suggests.

“But this is more fun,” Lydia responds, which yeah okay it could be pretty funny.

Scott hears footsteps in the doorway then and gestures for Lydia and Allison to be quiet. “Shh! They’re coming.”

Lydia sits up straighter and Allison covers her mouth with her hand to hide her giggle. Scott just sits back and waits for the train wreck to begin.

As soon as Stiles and Derek are through the door of Scott and Stiles’ apartment, Lydia’s up off her seat, taking her purse with her so it looks like she’s on her way out.

“Hey _Stiles.”_ She sidles up to him with a sly smirk, innocently trailing a hand up his arm. “How are you?”

Stiles looks like she’s grown a second head. “Uh pretty good? What about you?”

“Oh I was just heading out but listen, I was thinking I could maybe come over tonight and we hang out? Just us,” she emphasises.

Stiles looks at Derek with a deer-in-the-headlights expression and Scott watches Derek subtly shrug back at him.

“Um sure?” he says, turning back to Lydia. “That’d be fun.”

“Great.” Lydia gives him a satisfied look, squeezes his bicep before letting go and saunters out of the room without a backward glance.

Stiles basically trips over to the couch, a quietly confused Derek following behind him. “What just happened?” he asks, baffled.

“Looks like Lydia’s finally taking notice of you,” Allison says, elbowing Stiles teasingly.

Stiles’ eyes bug out comically wide. “You think?”

“It’s a best friend thing,” Allison shrugs. “I can tell.”

“But-“

“Come on, bro, this is what you’ve always wanted,” Scott pitches in, jostling Stiles encouragingly for good measure.

“Yeah but…” Stiles trails off, looking at Derek and Scott thinks they might actually get a confession. Lydia’s gonna be so pissed she missed it.

“But what?” Scott prompts.

Stiles starts and looks back to Scott. “Nothing. This is just a lot to take in.”

“I’m sure you guys can talk about it tonight.”

*

It’s fifteen minutes before Lydia’s due to come over and Stiles feels mildly sick. “I can’t do this!” he says frantically, pacing back and forth in their tiny bathroom while Derek sits on the closed toilet seat and watches him.

“Sure you can,” Derek says idly. “Lydia’s bluffing. I told you the three of them reeked of anxiety when we got home. They know. They’re just trying to get us to admit it.”

“Okay but Lydia can be really persistent when she wants to be!” he wails, stopping his pacing in favour of standing in front of Derek and wringing his hands.

Derek heaves a sigh and stands up, planting his hands on Stiles’ shoulders. “We can just tell them if you want.”

“No!” Stiles protests immediately. “I mean I’m not ashamed of you,” he adds quickly, bringing his arms up around Derek’s neck. “But it’s the principle of the thing! They’re trying to beat us at our own game! They think we’re gonna cave first but I can totally outlast Lydia.”

Derek smirks at him. “You’re so weird,” he says fondly, pecking Stiles’ lips and ushering him out of the bathroom. “Go. She’ll be here any minute.”

As if to prove a point, Lydia knocks on the door right then. Stiles takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and swings the door open. “Hey!” he greets enthusiastically, allowing her to pass through.

“So I’ve been thinking,” Lydia starts and wow she’s gonna jump right into this, isn’t she? Stiles closes the door, following her into the living room. Lydia spins on her heel to face him and gives him an appraising look. “I was too quick to judge you in high school,” she drawls, giving him a smirk that would’ve turned him into a puddle of goo ten years ago.

“Really?” he asks, swallowing hard. He didn’t realise just how much he _doesn’t_ like the idea of being with anyone else besides Derek until right now. Like he’s always planned on being faithful but just- he really, really doesn’t want anyone else anymore. _At all_.

“Mhm,” Lydia hums, stepping closer until they’re almost chest to chest. “What d’you say?”

“U-um I think that- that that would be nice,” he winces. Lydia leans in even closer and he’s genuinely about to start hyperventilating.

“Candles!” he yells.

Lydia pulls back, looking at him like he’s lost his mind. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t have any candles,” he stammers. “And I think this is a candle-worthy moment, don’t you?”

“I can get some from across the hall?” Lydia offers. Shit.

“Yes definitely, you should do that.” Stiles ushers her to the door, doesn’t even bother to actually see her out before he’s racing back into the bathroom.

“Derek!” he whines, slamming the door shut behind him. Derek’s standing in the middle of the room, arms folded and looking, for all the world, like he’s trying not to laugh. “Stiles, relax,” he says amusedly.

“She’s not backing down! She’ll kiss me just to spite me, I know she will.”

“So kiss her back,” Derek shrugs.

Stiles’ eyes snap to him. “Seriously.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Derek shrugs again. “It’s not like you’ll mean it.”

“I know but-“

“Stiles, she’s coming back,” Derek says quietly, leaning over to open the door. “It’s fine, you’re the one that wants to win this stupid thing.”

“But-“

“Let’s beat ‘em,” Derek grins and then he’s nudging Stiles out the door and closing it.

“Everything okay?”

Stiles jumps, he didn’t even hear her come back in. “Yeah,” he sighs, turning around to see Lydia at the breakfast bar with two candles and a lighter. She keeps her eye on Stiles as she lights them, like she’s waiting for him to snap.

“Better?” she asks, setting the lighter down and drifting over to Stiles.

“Mhm,” he hums an octave higher than usual.

Lydia smiles widely, leaning in like she’s going to kiss him and god he can’t do this, he so can’t do this. Competition be damned, he can’t do this.

“I can’t do this!” he screeches hysterically.

Lydia takes a step back triumphantly. “And why not?”

Stiles hears the front door burst open at the exact same time the bathroom door opens and he points wildly in Derek’s direction. “Because I _love him_. Okay _me_. I, Stiles. Love him, Derek.”

He strides purposefully up to Derek who’s standing dumbstruck outside the bathroom door, and curls his fingers in Derek’s henley. “I love you,” he says earnestly before crushing their lips together.

Derek’s hands fly to his waist and he kisses back instantly. Stiles melts into him, revelling in the feeling that it’s _right_. Derek pulls back after a few seconds and says in a tone that honestly makes Stiles’ knees weak, “I love you too.”

“I thought you guys were just screwing around, I didn’t know you were in love!” Scott pipes up from where he’s standing inside the doorway with his arm around Allison, giving them the most awed, adorable smile.

“Congratulations,” Allison says with a soft grin.

“About time,” Lydia scoffs.

Stiles snorts, leaning into Derek’s side as he wraps his arm around him. “Yeah, yeah. Well done, you got me to admit it, I hope you’re happy.”

“I am,” Lydia says primly, smirking smugly.

 _I am too_ , Stiles thinks, looking at the faint blush on Derek’s face and the thrilled smile he’s desperately trying to hide.


	9. The One With The Giant Poking Device

Stiles and Derek are lounging on the couch, watching some action movie neither of them are paying attention to when Scott lets himself into the apartment with baby Emily – actually they were making out on the couch but then Derek heard Scott coming up the stairs, god bless werewolf hearing.

“Hey guys,” Scott greets, closing the door with his foot and unloading Emily’s diaper bag on the kitchen table. “Thanks so much for watching her for the day, I didn’t expect to get called into work.”

“It’s cool, Scotty,” Stiles says, jumping up off the couch and moving over to him. “You know I love spending time with my favourite girl,” Stiles coos, opening his arms for Emily.

“Don’t let Lydia hear you say that,” Scott snorts.

“Or Erica,” Derek adds from where he’s getting up off the couch.

Stiles rolls his eyes, cradling Emily to his chest when Scott lets her go. “They’ve been downgraded. Nothing beats babies.”

“Again, don’t let them hear you say that,” Scott grins before checking his watch. “So listen, I gotta run. I’ll probably get outta surgery before Allison finishes work so I’ll call when I’m on my way home.”

“You got it, dude,” Stiles nods, bouncing Emily on his hip as Scott leans in to give her a kiss goodbye.

“I’ll see you later, sweetie,” he says adoringly, his whole expression softening when she blinks, smiles up at him and says, “Da.”

“Bye snookums!” Stiles simpers, making Scott stand up straight and roll his eyes at him.

“Don’t break my baby while I’m gone!” Scott calls over his shoulder as he heads out the door.

“We would never!” Stiles calls. “Isn’t that right, boo?” he directs to Emily who’s too busy patting Derek’s beard in fascination.

Seeing Derek with kids is enough to make Stiles’ non-existent ovaries explode. He’s ducked his head a little bit so he’s on eye-level with Emily and he keeps pulling funny faces while she taps her chubby little hands on his beard.

Stiles is  _melting_.

Derek catches his eye and grins, straightening up and holding out his arms for Emily. “Why don’t you come with me while Uncle Stiles makes your lunch, huh?” he asks her in the most precious voice, scooping her out of Stiles’ arms.

Stiles watches Derek bounce her on his hip as he takes her over to the couch and gets a swooping feeling in his stomach. God, he wants this with Derek.

He turns to her diaper bag with a wistful sigh, fishing out the tin of spaghetti hoops Scott had left for her. She’s only just over eighteen months and she’s already obsessed with the stuff. Stiles goes through the motions of making it, mostly distracted by Emily’s giggles every time Derek does something to make her laugh.

The domesticity of sitting down on the couch with Derek and feeding Emily while Derek holds her is almost enough to make Stiles’ heart burst. Scott won’t mind if they don’t give him back his pride and joy at the end of the day, right?

“I want one,” Stiles sighs longingly, watching Derek delicately wipe the spaghetti stains from around Emily’s mouth.

Derek’s head snaps up and he looks at Stiles with an inscrutable expression but it looks  _good_. “Are you still gonna want one when it’s diaper-changing time and four-o’clock-in-the-morning feeding time?”

“Yes,” Stiles insists, his gaze softening as Emily wraps her hand around his thumb. When he looks back up Derek’s expression isn’t unreadable anymore, it’s- it’s  _yearning_.

“We’ll talk about it,” Derek says quietly and Stiles nods mutely. They could have a baby- their own baby, another little munchkin for Emily to play with… He needs to think of something else before he does something stupid like cry.

“Hey Emily!” he claps his hands together before picking Emily up out of Derek’s arms. “Wanna show Uncle Derek the airplane game?!”

Derek raises his eyebrows, smirking, as Stiles begins spinning Emily – gently, because she just ate and he doesn’t want her to spit up. Fairly soon Emily’s giggles fill up the room and he starts pretending to throw her up in the air because it always makes her break down in fits of laughter.

It’s great – Emily’s laughing and Derek’s smiling until Stiles gets a little too close to the support beam and whacks her head off it.

Emily’s silent of a split-second before she erupts into sobs and Stiles’ eyes widen in horror as he cradles her to his chest, one hand resting over the back of her head. “I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry,” he murmurs anxiously over and over again as he keeps rocking her. Derek’s over at his side in an instant, crowding close and gently pushing Stiles’ hand out of the way to replace it with his own. After a second black veins travel up his skin.

“Is she okay?” Stiles asks worriedly.

“I think it was just the shock of it that gave her a fright more than anything,” Derek replies soothingly, his free arm snaking around Stiles’ waist.

Emily eventually stops crying a few minutes later and Stiles is so distracted by her flushed, tear-stained cheeks he doesn’t notice her head until Derek says, “Um…” and points to her forehead.

Stiles’ eye bug out and he quickly sits her down on the couch, crouching in front of her. “Oh my god is that a bump?! That’s a bump!” he cries frantically. “Oh my god I broke Scott’s kid!”

“Stiles, calm down,” Derek says though he doesn’t sound far from a panic attack.

“A hat!” Stiles says suddenly. “We need a hat! Scott won’t notice if she’s wearing a hat.”

“Do you have a baby hat?” Derek asks sceptically.

“…No. Check her bag though! There might be one in there.”

Stiles puts his hands over Emily’s legs to keep her from moving and looks up to see Derek racing over to the kitchen table. “Any luck?” he asks, chewing on his lip anxiously.

“No,” Derek huffs. “Wait. Where’s the key to Lydia’s apartment?”

“In the bowl by the door. Why?” Stiles asks confusedly.

Derek doesn’t answer him, just tears out the door without bothering to close it. When he comes back a few minutes later he’s got Lydia’s rainy day bear in his hand.

“You’re a genius!” Stiles exclaims, sighing in relief and smiling at Emily. “Your Uncle Derek’s a genius,” he tells her.

That’s right about the time he hears the ripping of fabric. He looks up and sees Derek with a fucking  _decapitated_  teddy bear. Stiles’ mouth drops open in shock before he groans, thudding his head down on the couch in front of Emily’s feet. “It’s like a bloodbath in here today.”

“The hat was sewn on!” Derek protests, scowling, as he kneels down next to Stiles, trying to get the hat off the teddy’s head.

“So you decided to take rainy day bear’s head off?!” Stiles demands, sitting up again. “Lydia’s going to murder you.”

“I’ll buy her another bear,” Derek huffs, finally getting the hat free and placing it on Emily’s head. “See. Perfect.”

Stiles nods, blowing about a breath in relief. “Crisis averted, Em.”

Emily blinks up at him, smiling serenely and pointing at Stiles. “’Tiles!” she lisps.

Stiles’ eyes widen and he thinks his heart legitimately almost beats out of his chest as he meets Derek’s gaze. “Did she just say my name?”

Derek nods, grinning and booping Emily’s nose with his index finger. “Good job, Em!” he coos – that’s right, Derek Hale; big scary werewolf,  _coos_.

Emily beams up at them. “’Tiles bang!” she yells, clapping her hands together.

Stiles feels all the blood drain from his face. “What did she just say?”

“’Tiles bang!” Emily oh so helpfully repeats.

“Oh my god  _she’s gonna rat me out!”_  Stiles yells, scrambling to stand up so he can pace back and forth to dispel some of his nervous energy.

Derek gets up off the floor and sits on the couch so he can pull Emily into his arms again. “Maybe it’s not so bad,” he hedges. “Maybe she’ll forget she said it by the time Scott gets back.”

“You think?” Stiles asks, biting at his thumbnail.

“Maybe,” Derek replies uncertainly. “Why don’t I put her down for a nap, she’ll have totally forgotten all this by the time she wakes up.”

“Okay. Yeah. Do that,” Stiles agrees from where he’s wearing a path in their carpet.

*

Scott gets back just as Derek’s waking Emily up from her nap. Derek looks up from where Emily’s sleepily playing with his fingers when Scott slips into their spare bedroom.

“Hey man,” he whispers, walking over to the bed and sitting down beside Derek. “How’s my little princess?”

“Fine,” Derek answers way too fast.

Scott gives him a peculiar look that just becomes even more confused when he takes in the hat on Emily’s head. “Why’s she wearing a rain hat?”

“Oh she was just playing,” Derek replies airily, waving a hand.

Scott chuckles, reaching over to slip the hat off Emily’s head. Derek holds his breath and Scott’s silent for a second as he takes in the bump on her head.

“Did she bump her head?” Scott asks, looking over at Derek. He doesn’t  _sound_  mad but Derek can’t really tell.

“It was an accident!” he says immediately.

Scott actually has the audacity to laugh when he picks Emily up. “Derek, it’s fine,” Scott assures him. “Babies bump their heads all the time. They’re tough work; you can’t take your eyes off them for a second.”

“I didn’t,” Derek insists. “I was watching her when Stiles hit her head off the thing.”

Scott freezes, his gaze slowly swivelling to Derek. “Stiles was the one who bumped her head?”

Derek pauses, realising his mistake. Shit he just told on Stiles. Oh god he’s gonna kill him. “No he-“

Scott isn’t listening though. “Can you hold her for a sec?” he asks distractedly, getting up and going back into the living room.

Derek focuses his hearing and hesitantly eavesdrops.

“Hey Stiles, was Em okay for you today?” Scott asks unassumingly.

There’s a pause, Derek can practically  _feel_  Stiles panicking. “Uh yeah. Why?”

“N’aw it’s just, I was in there with her a second ago and she was walkin’ kinda funny.”

There’s another pause and then-  _“Oh my god I really_ did _break your baby!”_

Suddenly Stiles is bursting into the room and rushing over to Derek and Emily.

“Stiles, she’s fine,” Derek says quietly, trying not to laugh at the look of fury that settles on Stiles’ face. He straightens and spins on his heel, yelling, “You  _asshole!”_  before racing out of the room.

Derek sighs and looks down at Emily. “Wanna watch Uncle Stiles beat up Daddy?”

“Da!” Emily gurgles happily.

Derek stands up, carrying her into the living room to see Stiles chasing Scott around the room. “You know how much I love that kid!” he accuses as Scott runs away, cackling.

“Stiles bang! Stiles bang! Stiles b-“ Scott cuts off abruptly, ramming straight into the beam that Emily banged her head off earlier.

Stiles crows about karma for the rest of the night.

*

“So,” Stiles says later that night when they’re in bed. “Before all the drama happened, we had a pretty big revelation.”

Derek tenses up underneath him and Stiles picks his head up off Derek’s chest to meet his gaze. “You meant it?” Derek whispers. It doesn’t hide the quiet hopefulness in his voice.

Stiles nods, smiling softly. “I really, really meant it,” he murmurs.

Derek’s breath hitches as he brings a hand up, smoothing his thumb over Stiles’ cheek. “I meant it too.”

“We’re gonna try to get a baby?” Stiles asks, feeling his heart thump heavily in his chest.

Derek nods, using the hand that’s cupping Stiles’ face to pull him in for a kiss.

“So. Are we gonna steal one or…”

 

 

 


	10. The One With The Jam

“Stiles. Stiiiiles. Get up!”

“No,” Stiles says firmly, shoving a pillow over his head to block Scott out.

He heaves an exaggeratedly loud sigh and then suddenly Stiles has a Scott-shaped lump on top of him and no pillow. “Stiles,” he repeats, giving him a sad smile.

Stiles glares because he’s seen so many sympathetic smiles in the last week he thinks he’s going to punch the next person who does it. “Don’t, Scott.”

“You’ve gotta stop moping, bud. You can fix this!” he encourages, his sad smile traded out for a supportive one.

“No I can’t, Scott,” Stiles sighs.

“Stiles, I know you want Derek back. You wouldn’t still be in bed if you didn’t,” Scott reasons. “Besides I’m mostly here as a messenger because the others think you’re the least likely to shoot me.”

Stiles shouldn’t ask. Asking about Derek will just make him sad which’ll just make him burrow even further under his blankets and not resurface for another two weeks. God when Stiles first got into a relationship no one told him how fucking painful it’d be when it ended.

“Why?” he asks eventually, as quietly as possible so he can pretend he didn’t say anything if Scott doesn’t hear. As if that’ll happen what with werewolf hearing, close range and Scott’s ability to read Stiles’ lips, facial expressions _and_  feelings.

“He won’t stop making jam,” is not Stiles expects to hear.

“What?” he asks confusedly.

Scott huffs and rolls off him so they’re side by side. “Derek, man. He hasn’t stopped making jam since you broke up. Allison and I already have twenty jars. I don’t even think he’s sleeping.”

“He’s- he’s making _jam?”_  Stiles asks incredulously. He’s trying to wrap his head around this, he really is, but… _jam?_

Scott nods, a concerned expression on his face. “I don’t think he’s coping very well.”

Stiles stays silent. He shouldn’t care. This is just Derek’s way of dealing. Stiles hides in his blanket fort, Derek makes jam.

“I know you miss him,” Scott murmurs after a while.

Stiles rolls his head to the side to look at him, his throat feeling tight. “Of course I miss him. It’s not like I’ve stopped loving him yet.”

“Why’d you break up?” Scott questions gently. “You haven’t really said…”

“It’s- it’s  _scary_ ,” Stiles exhales. “Y’know? Caring about someone that much. Loving someone so much it’s inexplicable. I mean that’s not healthy, right?”

“That’s love, man,” Scott shrugs, smiling slightly. Right, Stiles forgot he was talking to the biggest champion of love on the planet.

“Yeah but me and Derek, we- we thought we were becoming too dependent or something,” Stiles admits. “Which we clearly are, given the way we’re acting right now.”

“Stiles, you’re not co-dependent, you’re in love,” Scott disagrees. “Look, I know neither of you had a lot of experience with that feeling before each other but dude, what you and Derek have is so fucking real. Anyone could see it.”

“And I know it’s scary,” Scott continues quietly. “It’s really fucking scary but it’s also one of the most amazing feelings in the entire world if you can find it. And you did! So don’t throw it away.”

“But-“ Stiles tries to protest. The problem isn’t the love, it’s  _how much_  he loves him. “What if I love him too much, Scotty? I don’t wanna be half of a whole, I wanna be whole all on my own. And Derek should be too. And we’re not when we’re together.”

Scott presses his lips into a thin line and Stiles knows he’s about to get some serious philosophical insight. “Look dude, all that “other half” stuff people talk about and the idea of someone completing you, it’s bullshit. Yes, you’re part of Stiles-and-Derek but you’re also Stiles. You’re already complete; you’re already your own person. But that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to want people. You’re allowed to have people in your life you can’t live without. Whether it’s me or your dad or Derek. You’re allowed to have constants,” Scott insists. “And yeah, sometimes people get caught up in that and lose themselves but you haven’t. And neither has Derek. You’re torturing yourselves for nothing.”

Stiles is tearing up. In fact, he’s probably crying. God Scott is the  _worst_. Why does he have to explain things so well and why does he have to give Stiles so much hope?

“I hate you,” Stiles sniffles and Scott grins, rolling forward to hug him.

“You can fix it,” Scott assures. “And seriously dude, just get him to stop with the jam. I mean, it’s amazing but his apartment stinks of sugar.”

Stiles huffs a laugh and wipes his eyes, pushing himself up into a sitting position. “I’m gonna go talk to Derek,” he decides.

*

Scott wasn’t wrong about the jam. When Stiles lets himself into Derek’s apartment the smell is so strong even Stiles’ human nose can pick it up. There’s full, half-full and empty jars on every flat surface and Derek is in the kitchen, frantically running back and forth between the pot on the stove and the chopping board full of fruit he has. He freezes when he notices Stiles though.

“Hey,” he says blankly, hands poised with a strawberry and a chopping knife.

“Hi,” Stiles replies quietly.

Derek doesn’t say anything else and Stiles looks around the room to find something to say.

“So I heard you’re starting a jam-making business,” he says conversationally, smiling slightly.

Derek starts, like that was the last thing he expected to come out of Stiles’ mouth. But then his lips are turning up in an almost smile. He ducks his head and nods. “Something like that,” he mumbles.

“How’ve you been?” Stiles asks after another few moments of silence.

“Okay, I guess,” Derek replies, his voice uncharacteristically small. “What about you?”

Stiles decides honesty is the best policy if they’re gonna get anywhere tonight. “Uh not so great, honestly.”

Derek’s gaze snaps to his in surprise and he opens his mouth in an aborted gesture. Eventually he sighs and say, “Me neither.”

Stiles takes that as all the permission he needs and Derek barely has time to put down the knife and fruit before Stiles is barrelling into his arms. He buries his face in Derek’s neck and just  _inhales_  – which is really more Derek’s thing but Stiles needs it right now. He winds his arms as tight as he possibly can around Derek’s middle and digs his fingers into the back of Derek’s shirt.

Derek’s arms settle around him in a comforting weight and he presses his nose into Stiles’ hair. He sighs and Stiles feels his shoulders drop, feels him sag with relief and melt into him.

“I missed you so much,” Stiles whispers, releasing a shaky breath when Derek starts carding his fingers through his hair.

“I missed you too,” Derek murmurs before pressing his lips to the side of Stiles’ head.

They stay like that for a long time. Long enough for Derek’s hand to drop and circle his thighs. Long enough for Stiles to acquiesce and wrap his legs around Derek’s waist. Long enough for Derek to carry him to the couch and sit down with Stiles straddling his lap. Not even kissing, just breathing each other in.

They  _do_  kiss; small, darting presses of lips that sometimes become languid, lazy and drawn out and sometimes don’t. In between whispered promises and apologies for giving up too quickly and I love you’s and it’s so much Stiles feels like he’s going to explode.

He leans his forehead to Derek’s, breath feeling laboured and his heart beating so fast he honestly thinks he’s about to have a panic attack but then Derek catches his wrist and pushes Stiles’ hand to his chest. Stiles doesn’t get it at first until he feels a faint thumping under his hand and then he realises he can feel Derek’s heart. Not as strongly as Derek can hear his but it’s there.

Stiles swallows hard, surges forward and crushes his lips to Derek’s, fingers curling in the fabric of Derek’s t-shirt over his heart. Derek kisses back, pulling him in, pulling him down. Just  _pulling him_. Until there’s no space between them. Until all Stiles can feel is Derek and all he can think is Derek.

And he knows that’s okay. He’s allowed to. Because Derek’s his constant.

*

It’s another fifteen minutes before Derek pulls away and mutters that his jam is ruined because he forgot to take it off the stove.

 


	11. The One With Joey's Bag

Stiles groans appreciatively, feeling his muscles turn to goo under Derek’s hands. “You’re gonna be the death of me,” he slurs happily, practically mewling like a cat when Derek digs his fingers into the knot at the base of his neck.

Derek huffs a laugh from above him, moving to smooth his hands over Stiles’ shoulder blades. “I hope not.”

“Maybe just a little death,” Stiles amends with a mumble, laughing when he hears Derek’s audible sigh.

Derek leans over him until his mouth is right by Stiles’ ear. “Only if you’re good,” he whispers teasingly, making a shiver run down his spine.

Stiles hums happily as Derek sits up again, continuing massaging his upper back. “I’m totally gonna return the favour by the way,” he adds. “My mom used to say I gave her the best backrubs.”

“Do you really think talking about our parents is conducive to where this is eventually going to lead?” Derek asks drily.

Stiles huffs underneath him, “I’m just telling you I come with a good recommendation.”

“Got it,” Derek snorts.

*

It’s not that Stiles is _bad_ at massages it’s just- okay, no. He’s terrible at them.

He’s lucky Derek is a werewolf because if he were to inflict a human to this kind of torture they’d probably have a slipped disk or two by now. For the most part, Derek just grits his teeth and waits for it to be over.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Stiles’ hands – quite the opposite actually. He loves Stiles’ hands; they’re strong and veiny and his fingers are long and dextrous and Derek has gotten way too distracted way too many times thinking about Stiles’ hands and what they can do.

Things they can do just don’t include massages apparently.

“God you’re so tense, Der,” Stiles exclaims, pressing his fingers into the space between Derek’s shoulder blades. “Are you stressed?”

“Something like that,” Derek grinds out.

“Don’t worry, Imma take care of you,” Stiles tells him affectionately and Derek appreciates the sentiment, he really does, but he’s pretty sure all the tension would leak out of him as soon as Stiles stopped digging his fingers into every nook and crevice on Derek’s back.

He eventually forces himself to relax in the hopes that Stiles will stop and to his relief, he does. Stiles rolls off him until he’s lying on his side next to Derek. “Did you enjoy it?” he asks hopefully.

And god, his face is so close and he looks so earnest, there’s no way Derek can tell him the truth. “Yeah,” he smiles softly, leaning in to peck Stiles’ lips. “Thank you.”

Stiles beams at him, “Told you I gave the best massages ever.”

*

Derek should’ve known honesty was _always_ the best policy.

They’re sitting with everyone in his and Stiles’ kitchen when Lydia starts rubbing at her neck uncomfortably.

“You okay?” Allison asks, frowning as she takes a sip of her tea.

Lydia nods but her face is all pinched up. “I think I pulled a muscle in my neck, I must’ve slept weird last night.”

Before anyone else can say a word Stiles is up and standing behind her chair. “I can give you a neck rub,” he offers, settling his hands on her shoulders. “I give awesome massages, right Der?”

He doesn’t get a chance to reply because as soon as Stiles presses his thumbs into the back of Lydia’s neck she lets out a very un-Lydia-like screech and bolts out of her chair. “What the hell was that?” she demands, clutching protectively at the back of her neck.

“What?” Stiles asks, completely unassuming.

“Were you trying to paralyse me?!” She starts rubbing at her neck again, glowering at Stiles.

“You didn’t like it?” Stiles’ face falls as he looks down at his hands. “But I thought- Derek you liked your massage, right?”

Scott – who Derek is forever eternally grateful to – saves him. “I think Derek maybe didn’t feel as much pain since he’s a werewolf,” Scott explains gently. “And I think he maybe didn’t want to hurt your feelings?”

“But my mom-“ Stiles cuts himself off, looking close to tears as he excuses himself, heading into their bedroom and closing the door behind him.

Derek follows him instantly, opens the door to find Stiles sitting on the edge of the bed dejectedly.

Derek cautiously takes a seat next to him and when he isn’t rebuffed, puts his arm around him.

“You didn’t like it, did you?” Stiles asks, looking up with sad eyes that almost rival Scott’s.

“It was a little…heavy-handed for me,” Derek winces and Stiles tries to shrug out of his grip. “But Stiles-“ he continues quickly, catching Stiles’ hand and forcing him to keep his gaze. “You were trying to do something nice for me. I’m not gonna throw that back in your face,” he says softly.

“Do you think my mom was lying too?” Stiles asks quietly and Derek knows that’s what he’s upset about more than anything.

“I think you were a little kid who wanted to make your mom happy and _that_ made her extremely happy.”

“But-“

“Stiles,” Derek says gently. “She loved you so much and she’d never be upset with you over something like this.” Derek knows the irrationality of Stiles’ mind when it comes to his mom. Thankfully he’s also been learning what the right thing to say is for the past ten years.

“Thanks,” Stiles mumbles, resting his forehead against Derek’s. “I think I’ll let you handle the massages from now on.”

Derek laughs, kissing him briefly. “I think that might be for the best.”

Stiles huffs, smacking his arm lightly before tucking himself into Derek’s side and resting his head on Derek’s shoulder. “Will you go out there and take some of Lydia’s pain away?”

“Isaac’s already got it covered,” Derek answers.

“…Will you give me a back rub then?”

“Sure,” Derek chuckles, kissing the top of Stiles’ head. “I’ve got you.”


	12. The One Where No One Proposes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally thought this was the Monica/Chandler proposal ep so that;s actually what this fic is based off!

"Dude!" Stiles says urgently as soon as Scott picks up. "Derek has a ring."

"You proposed already?" Scott asks excitedly, misunderstanding.

"No, I mean I found a ring in his sock drawer.  _He’s_  going to propose.”

"That’s good though, right?" Scott says. "That means you know he won’t say no."

"But  _I’m_  the one who’s supposed to propose,” Stiles whines. “I even asked Lydia for help.  _Lydia_.”

"Okay, calm down-"

"I’m just gonna have to throw him off the scent," Stiles decides. "Make him think I don’t wanna get married. That way he won’t propose and I can surprise him."

"Dude, he can tell when you’re lying," Scott points out.

"Yeah but half-truths confuse him," Stiles shrugs, then he remembers Scott can’t see him. "I can point out all the flaws about marriage, doesn’t mean I actually believe any of them."

"This sounds like a bad idea," Scott replies worriedly.

"Yeah but you’re still gonna help me, right?"

He hears Scott sigh heavily on the other end of the line and then a defeated sounding, “Yeah.”

*

He implements his plan immediately - he has to act fast.

Scott and Stiles are watching a movie when Derek gets home from Boyd and Erica’s house - Runaway Bride, oh yeah Stiles planned this alright. Derek flops down into the space between the two of them, stretching out a bit and resting his head on Stiles’ chest.

Stiles instantly starts running his fingers through Derek’s hair and kisses the top of his head. “Did you guys have fun?”

"Yeah," Derek hums contently, reaching for Stiles’ other arm and pulling it around him. "What are you watching?"

"Runaway Bride," Scott answers, looking pretty enraptured by the TV screen - he’s such a sucker for romcoms.

"Yeah we were just talking about how overrated marriage is," Stiles adds conversationally.

Derek tilts his head back to look at him with a perplexed expression. “You think marriage is overrated?”

Stiles shrugs, careful not to give a direct answer. As if Derek’s hearing wasn’t good enough, his head is resting right on top of Stiles’ heart. “I mean it’s just a piece of paper. And if it doesn’t work out, you have to go through all this drama to get out of it. Who needs the complication?”

"I don’t think most people think of it as a complication," Derek says slowly, sitting up and pulling out of Stiles’ arms. "You really think that?"

Stiles shrugs again, “I mean, what’s the point?”

"To make a promise to each other? To show your love for one another?" Derek suggests in disbelief.

"Can’t you do that without a piece of paper though?"

"So you really never want to get married? Ever?" Derek presses.

Stiles makes a non-committal noise that sounds vaguely like a “no”.

He can almost see Derek’s face shut down into something unreadable and he’s suddenly worried he pushed too far. 

"I think I’m gonna go to bed," Derek says absently, leaving the room in record time.

When Stiles’ eyes stop following him out the doorway he looks to Scott who gives him a disapproving frown.

"Too much?" Stiles winces.

"That was more, "crush Derek’s dreams and ideas about commitment," than, "throw him off the scent,"" Scott says gently.

Stiles hangs his head, sighing. “Can you leave so I can fix this?”

Scott nods understandingly, standing up and squeezing Stiles’ shoulder. “Go get ‘em, buddy,” he encourages softly and then he’s gone.

Stiles drags himself off the couch and goes to fish the ring box out of the drawer in the living room that Derek never looks in because it’s full of pictures of Stiles and his mom.

He slips into the bedroom then and sees Derek lying on his side with the blanket pulled up over him.

Stiles walks over tentatively, dropping to his knees at the head of the bed, folding his forearms on the mattress and resting his chin on top so he’s eye level with Derek.

"Sleepy head," he says softly. "Open your eyes for a sec, would you? I need to ask you something."

Derek cracks his eyes open one by one and tries to keep his face expressionless - he fails miserably.

Stiles shifts his legs underneath himself so he’s only on one knee and pushes himself up a little straighter, sliding his arms off the bed so he’s propped up on his elbows instead and keeps the small box hidden in his hand.

Derek doesn’t seem to notice the way he’s kneeling which is probably a good thing.

He starts messing with the ring box then, watching out of the corner of his eye as Derek notices it and his eyes track its movement.

"What’s that?" he mumbles.

"Huh?" Stiles asks, pretending to be distracted. "Oh this?" He gestures to the box, barely containing his smile and then opens the lid. "Yeah, I was just thinking maybe you should marry me," he says casually.

"You-" Derek shoots up into a sitting position, his hair completely dishevelled and flat on one side - it’s  _adorable._  “What you said before-“

"Was bullshit because I found the ring in your sock drawer and I panicked because _I_  wanted to be the one to propose and it was supposed to be way more romantic than this with like, fairy lights and everything because I know you don’t like candles but then you looked so upset earlier and I had to-“

He stops when he sees the incredulous,  _adoring_  smile on Derek’s face. Derek shakes his head then, laughing ruefully. “Can I try?” he asks.

Stiles nods mutely, watching with wide eyes as Derek leans down and opens his sock drawer, pulling out a little black box.

He grabs Stiles’ hand then and urges him up onto the bed. Once they’re both sitting on the mattress Derek pushes himself up so he’s kneeling and nods for Stiles to do the same.

Stiles does, laughing a bit and feeling his eyes start to water.

They’re chest to chest as Derek looks down, bringing his hands up so he can open the box. He turns it around slowly to reveal a simple silver band to Stiles - much like the one he got for Derek.

He meets Stiles’ gaze and Stiles feels the whole world drop out from underneath him. There’s no way he gets to keep Derek. There’s no way he gets to have this for the rest of his life. It’s not possible.

Derek opens his mouth and Stiles is waiting for the onslaught of romantic things he doesn’t deserve when Derek huffs. “Just- god, just marry me,” he breathes.

Stiles laughs again, doesn’t even care about the tears in his eyes this time and throws his arms around Derek. Derek clutches him tightly, burying his face in Stiles’ neck and just breathes him in.

This is real.

They’re doing this.

They’re in this forever.

"I can’t believe you tried to turn proposing into a competition." Derek huffs a laugh against his neck.

Stiles rolls his eyes, pulling back and sticking his tongue out at Derek’s amused face. “I just wanted to do something special for you,” he admits, eyes determinedly fixed on the hem of Derek’s t-shirt.

"I like this better," Derek says quietly and Stiles looks up to meet his gaze.

"This is us," Derek says. "In our bed, in our space, doing things the completely backwards, overly complicated way," he adds with a grin. "But it’s the way I want it."

"I love you," Stiles tells him before pressing their lips together. Derek sighs into him, curling one hand around Stiles’ waist and catching Stiles’ left hand with the other and he’s- he’s slipping the engagement ring on  _holy shit_.

"Wait," Stiles breaks away. "I wanna see!"

Derek scoffs against his forehead since Stiles basically headbutted him to look down.

"Let me put on yours." He leans over to grab Derek’s ring from where the box is still sitting by the pillow before grabbing Derek’s hand and sliding it on.

He hears a sharp intake of breath and looks up from Derek’s finger to see him staring at Stiles with an awed expression. He barely gets a chance to say anything before Derek surges forward and pulls him into a bruising kiss.

Stiles overbalances, tumbling backwards and pulling Derek with him but Derek doesn’t stop kissing him - he mouth, his cheek, his jaw, his neck; wherever he can reach.

It’s dizzying and overwhelming but the thing that knocks Stiles over more than anything is the faint clack from their rings when their fingers tangle together.

It’s real.

 


	13. The One With The Truth About London

“Wait.”

Stiles sighs, “Derek, it’s not a big deal-“

"Just hang on," Derek says, holding up a hand to stop him, closing his eyes like he can’t even fathom what he’s about to say. "That night. Our first night together. You went to my room looking for  _Isaac?_ ”

Stiles nods, pursing his lips abashedly.

"You hated Isaac back then," Derek continues bewildered. "You two fought all the time."

"Bet he was looking for hate sex," Isaac intones with a shit-eating grin.

Stiles snaps his head to him, glaring. “Not. Helping.”

"I can’t believe this," Derek mutters, standing up and heading for the door.

"Derek, wait!" Stiles pleads, hopping up off the couch and following. Derek stops, turning around slowly and looking at Stiles with the most terrible wounded expression. He’s never wanted to be the one to make Derek look like that - hence the whole getting married thing.

Stiles steps into his space hesitantly, reaching out for him. He ducks his head, trying to seek out Derek’s gaze until he looks up with a sigh. “Yes, that night I was looking for Isaac. Because I was drunk and he’d sleep with anything that moves-“

"Hey!" Isaac calls indignantly and then again when Scott punches him in the arm.

"And because I was feeling lonely and like I was never gonna find someone who’d want to be with me forever. Someone who’d want me for me and, by some miraculous feat, actually love me for all the things that make me who I am." Stiles’ thumbs start rubbing over Derek’s shoulders involuntarily but he feels spurred on when Derek leans into the touch a bit.

"So do you know how glad I was that it  _wasn’t_  Isaac in that room?” he continues. “Because instead I got you,” he says quietly with a shy smile. “I got that person, Derek. The one I was drunk over, the one who made me feel lonely. I got the person who’d want to be with me forever,” he murmurs earnestly. “I mean- if you still want to, that is.”

Derek rolls his eyes like Stiles is being ridiculous. “Of course I still want to,” he grumbles, pulling Stiles closer. “You’ve always been my forever.”

Stiles  _beams_  at him, leaning forward to kiss the breath out of the cheeseball he calls his fiancé.

"Guys," Scott interrupts, a smile on his face. "I think you just figured out your vows."

 


	14. The One With The Vows

Stiles frowns down at the piece of paper in front of him, clicking his pen compulsively. “I love you like…a winter’s- no summer’s- no wait-“ He groans frustratedly and scribbles out what he’s already written.

“You’re writing your vows, not a sonnet,” Scott snorts, being absolutely no help whatsoever.

Stiles shoots him a withering glare and tears the page out of the notepad altogether. “You could be a bit more helpful, y’know?” he grouses. “You’ve already done this before.”

“I’m not letting you copy my vows, Stiles,” Scott says amusedly.

“But I don’t know what to _say_ ,” Stiles whines. “And Derek deserves to hear all that romantic crap.”

“Stiles, he won’t care what you say because you’ll be the one saying it,” Scott reminds him. Easy for him to say – his vows made Allison _cry_.

“I know but-“ He sighs, staring down at the blank page. “I want it to be special. You know what Derek’s like, he’s gonna have some big long romantic spiel about us and I’m just gonna be like, “You’re really cute, thanks for marrying me,”.”

Scott barks out a laugh, shaking his head. ”Oh dude, Derek’s vows have got nothin’ on yours,” he laughs.

Stiles’ head snaps up that because- “Have you seen Derek’s vows?”

Scott freezes, realising he’s slipped up. “Wha- psh. _No_ ,” he stammers, steadfastly ignoring Stiles’ penetrating gaze.

“You _have!”_ Stiles accuses. “Oh my god, how could you not tell me?!” he demands.

“They’re supposed to be a surprise,” Scott mutters.

“Oh god, they’re romantic aren’t they?” Stiles moans. “He’s gonna sweep me off my feet, isn’t he?”

“I…may have gotten a little teary-eyed,” Scott admits. “But that’s just because he loves you so much, bro! And you’re my best friend - of course I want someone saying stuff like that about you.”

“This is gonna be a disaster,” Stiles cries, slouching back in his arm chair and burying his head in his hands.

“Tell me why you love Derek,” Scott says suddenly.

Stiles peeks out from behind his hands, regarding him warily. “What?”

“Tell me why you love Derek,” Scott repeats, smiling slightly.

Stiles sits up slowly, really thinking about his answer. “Because- because he’s caring and considerate and he loves so hard, y’know? And all people have ever done is throw it back in his face and that just makes no sense to me because I’ve never met someone who looks at me like he does. And he’s _fun_ and a giant nerd – like, did I ever tell you about the look on his face when he tells me about something he loves? God- it’s incredible,” Stiles sighs contently to himself, just thinking about it. “And just- he’s worth it, y’know? He’s _so_ worth it. He’s worth every stupid fight, every near-death experience, every fucking moment where it feels like my heart is going to beat out of my chest because I have no idea how to deal with my feelings for him. He’s worth it all. And I just want to spend forever trying to prove that to him.”

Stiles feels his eyes burning with unshed tears by the time he’s finished and he looks over at Scott in surprise. Scott, who’s been writing down everything he’s been saying without him even noticing.

“I’m pretty sure you figured out your vows,” Scott says gently.

Yeah, he thinks he has.


	15. The One With The Engagement Picture

“I still don’t understand why we have to do this,” Derek grumbles, side-eyeing the photographer while he sets up his camera.

“Hey my dad wants the world to know what a proud father and father-in-law-to-be he is,” Stiles shrugs, messing with Derek’s collar and sighing when Derek bats his hands away.

“Yeah but do we really need to put an announcement in the paper?” Derek complains.

“It was his engagement present, Derek,” Stiles reminds. He knows Derek is private guy but jeez it’s not like they could say  _no._

“I’m just not good in front of the camera,” Derek mumbles.

“But you’ve got a great smile!” Stiles protests, sliding his hand into Derek’s. “Don’t worry about it. Just a couple of shots and we’re done for the day.”

“Okay are you guys ready?” Their photographer – Joe – asks.

“Sure,” Stiles nods, facing forward but still keeping his hand in Derek’s to calm him down.

“Alright, we’re just gonna run through a couple of generic poses, nothing too complicated,” he says easily, adjusting his camera lens.

The whole thing is completely run-of-the-mill as far as Stiles can see. They’re sitting on a bench in front of a cloudy blue backdrop and Joe explains their poses generally consist of them slightly turned towards each other, hands folded together between them and bright smiles on their faces.

It doesn’t sound hard in theory.

Except then Joe starts clicking away on his camera and-

“Derek could you smile for me?” he requests and Stiles glances out of the corner of his eye to see Derek glaring at the lens. Oh for the love of god.

“What’s wrong with my face?” Derek demands.

Joe stops clicking and looks up from behind his camera. “Well you’re engaged! You’re supposed to look happy-“

“ _And?”_

“And well, you…don’t?” Joe answers hesitantly. “I mean, not really?”

Derek looks like he’s about to argue back so Stiles subtly elbows him in the ribs. He huffs and hangs his head, muttering that he’ll smile this time.

Joe gives him a weak smile and raises the camera again.

He takes pictures for about forty seconds before he sighs and stops again. “Derek, you’re not smiling.”

“I _am_ ,” Derek glowers and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“You look kind of growly to be honest.”

Stiles genuinely has to cover his mouth with his hand to prevent himself from laughing.

“Joe can you give us a sec while I talk to my fiancé?” Stiles asks when he sobers up a bit, ignoring Derek’s petulant grumblings.

Joe nods, looking relieved and races across the room to the water dispenser.

“Okay what’s wrong?” Stiles asks, shifting in his seat to turn to Derek.

“Nothing,” Derek insists but he won’t meet Stiles’ eyes.

“Derek, I know for a fact you have the world’s most incredible smile-“

“Yeah, around you,” he mumbles dejectedly.

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t realise I’m a figment of your imagination and you’re actually here alone.”

Derek rolls his eyes and gives him a look. “You know what I mean. I smile when I’m with  _you_ , doing normal things. Someone telling me how to touch you and when to smile isn’t normal.”

God, Stiles is in love with the cutest dork in the entire world, he really is.

“Want me to make you smile then?” Stiles asks mischievously, lips tugging up in a smirk.

Derek eyes him warily, like he’s unsure of Stiles’ next move. “How…?” he asks uncertainly.

“I don’t know,” Stiles shrugs casually. “I could tickle you? …Or compliment you? …Or tell you bad pick-up lines?” he adds, voice involuntarily becoming animated.

“Somehow I feel like I know which one of those options you’re gonna choose,” Derek replies, sounding long-suffering but Stiles can see the beginnings of a smile forming.

“Derek,” Stiles says seriously. “Are you a piece of art? Because I’d like to nail you up against a wall.”

Derek huffs in what almost could be considered a laugh and Stiles feels encouraged to continue.

“Is there a mirror in your pocket? Because I keep seeing myself in your pants.” Stiles grins as Derek shakes his head in exasperation. He’s gonna crack, Stiles knows. He just has to say something super ridiculous as seriously as he can manage.

He takes Derek’s hands then, clutching them to his chest and giving Derek a wide-eyed look. “Baby, you remind me of my big toe…sooner or later I’m gonna bang you on my kitchen table.”

Derek loses it. The stoic expression he’s being trying to keep in place completely dissolves and he starts laughing, eyes closed, crinkling in the corner and everything, his bunny teeth on show. Stiles can only grin stupidly back at him. He loves Derek’s laugh.

Derek opens his eyes, huffing another laugh when Stiles winks exaggeratedly at him, but then his smile softens, becomes the quieter kind of smile Stiles is used to seeing first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

It makes Stiles smile back and his heart thump heavily in his chest. It isn’t until he leans forward to kiss Derek lightly that he notices the clicking noise in the background. He pulls away and sees Joe with his camera trained right on them. He looks up when they break away from each other and nods, satisfied. “I think I got what we were looking for.”

*

The announcement comes out in the paper a week later. Stiles buys a copy from a vendor on the street and rushes to the coffee shop where Derek is sitting their usual spot with everyone else.

“I got it!” Stiles exclaims, squishing in between Derek and Scott on the couch and flicking through the paper until he gets to the personal pages. He feels everyone crowd around him as he finally lands on the right page and feels the breath rush out of him.

Joe had chosen the photo of them right before they’re about to kiss. They’re smiling contently at each other, leaning slightly towards each other, and their clasped hands are just visible at the bottom of the shot. The accompanying announcement of their engagement is simple and short, pre-approved by both him and Derek but he barely gives it a cursory glance.

He  _knows_  how Derek looks at him. And he knows how he looks at Derek. But actually seeing it in front of him like this, Stiles has never been more sure about wanting to marry Derek than right now.

One look to the side to meet Derek’s eyes says he’s thinking the same thing.


	16. The One With The Cheap Wedding Dress

“Why are Lydia and Erica coming suit shopping with us again?” Stiles complains to Scott who only gives him a wide-eyed innocent look and a shrug in response.

“ _Because_ you wouldn’t know high quality fashion if it hit you in the face _and_ you wouldn’t know about the place that sells the same suits you tried on in that expensive boutique for half the price if it wasn’t for me,” Lydia answers primly with a superior look.

“I’m bringing the muscle,” Erica adds smugly

Lydia gives her a cursory nod before ushering them into the store. “Now come on, I don’t have all day.” Inside, she hands them each a piece of paper with photo stuck on it and a whistle. “This is the suit we’re looking for and those are Stiles’ measurements. Blow on the whistle if you find it. And remember, be _ruthless_.”

Lydia’s got a fierce look in her eye and Stiles feels himself and Scott leaning away in fear. The place is busy, sure, and Lydia had already warned them there’s usually only one suit available in each size but still – it’s not like they’re not carrying out an assassination mission. Erica just studies the picture and nods seriously.

“Stiles, you take the left section and Scott, you take the right,” she orders. “Erica and I will tackle the middle. Ready?  _Go_.”

Stiles scampers off in the opposite direction of Scott, starting with the rail closest to the wall. Looking for one suit in the middle of ten thousand is pretty difficult when they all look the  _exact same._ It means he has to keep checking with the picture Lydia gave him to compare and it’s not until almost an hour later that he actually finds what he thinks he’s looking for. He fist pumps in delight before making a grab for the suit when he feels someone else tugging on it.

Stiles frowns, pulling hard until he’s suddenly being yanked through the rail, coming out the other side to face a girl that looks almost as terrifying as Lydia.

“Uh sorry but this suit is taken,” he tells her apologetically, giving her the patented McCall puppy-dog smile of innocence for good measure.

“I think you’ll find I had it first,” the girl replies snippily.

Stiles looks down at the tux clutched between them both and looks back up at the petite girl standing in front of him. “Um, I don’t really think it’s your size?”

“It’s my  _best friend’s_  suit,” she corrects with a huff before a look of recognition colours her features. “You’re Lydia’s friend, aren’t you?”

Oh shit. Stiles is about three seconds away from blowing on the emergency whistle.

“Yes?” he answers uncertainly.

The girl clucks her tongue haughtily. “Well you can tell her Claire got the suit before _you_.”

And yup, it’s definitely time for the whistle. Stiles keeps a firm grip on the suit with one hand while Claire tries to tug it away from him and brings the whistle to his lips with his other hand.

He hears Erica and Lydia’s heels clacking on the hardwood floors a moment later followed by a scandalised gasp. “ _Claire_.”

Claire turns, smiling dazzlingly at Lydia while still keeping a tight hold on the suit jacket.

“Uh, Lydia? Who is this person?” Stiles asks as Scott comes scuttling over, stopping behind Lydia and throwing Stiles a confused glance.

“She  _was_  the friend I made at the store we visited yesterday,” Lydia replies hotly. “I tipped her off about this place. Are you trying to take Stiles’ suit?”

“I told you I was helping my friend with his wedding too,” Claire answers sweetly.

Lydia’s entire face pinches up in a sour look as Erica rolls her eyes and pushes Stiles out of the way, grabbing hold of the suit herself.

Stiles is pretty sure he’ll never be able to unsee the catfight that ensues – it ends with Erica pinning Claire to the floor and throwing the suit at Lydia, screaming, “ _Go! Go! Go!”_

“That was so fun!” Erica says excitedly as they climb back into the car.

“I’m never going shopping with you ever again,” Stiles tells her resolutely.

*

“How did it go today?” Derek asks as Stiles settles into the seat next to him, leaning heavily against Derek’s side.

“We got my suit,” he says around a yawn – shopping is exhausting.

“Erica nearly took a girl out,” Scott supplies enthusiastically and Erica preens.

“I don’t even want to know,” Derek decides, idly playing with Stiles’ hair when his head drops onto Derek’s shoulder.

“Wise choice,” Stiles says.

Lydia’s phone starts ringing before she can add anything to the conversation. She says hello as charmingly as she always does but then her face falls before becoming livid. She punches the end call button angrily with her index finger a few moments later and meets Stiles gaze.

“Stiles can I talk to you in your room for a sec?” she asks in what could almost be considered a calm voice.

“Sure,” he says faintly, eyeing her warily as she storms into his and Derek’s bedroom.

Once he follows her in he closes the door behind him.

“Claire stole your band,” she says without preamble.

“What?” he asks blankly.

“Claire,” Lydia explains. “We’d got to talking yesterday and I was telling her about yours and Derek’s wedding plans and I guess to get back at us for the suit she booked your band on the night of your wedding so you couldn’t.”

“ _Lydia_.” Stiles hisses. “Derek wants that band more than everything, we can’t book someone else!”

“But that’s the only suit that matched Derek’s and looked _perfect_  on you, Stiles. And I’m not letting that bitch intimidate me.”

“Look I’m not gonna deny I felt hot in that suit but that band is the only thing Derek’s asked for, you  _know_ that. I can’t take it away from him,” Stiles pleads.

“Maybe we can get him to change his mind,” Lydia suggests. “There’re plenty of bands’ profiles in my wedding folder, I’m sure you’d like one.”

“Maybe,” Stiles says uncertainly.

Lydia gives him an encouraging smile and exits the room with him following dejectedly behind.

*

“So are you sure you want them for your wedding?” Lydia presses. She’s been trying to change Derek’s mind about their band for the last fifteen minutes. “Because I have plenty of options who have experience playing at weddings and-“

“Lydia, I already told you, I want The Swing Kings,” Derek says calmly.

“Why?” Lydia huffs.

Derek looks hesitantly at Stiles before his gaze returns to Lydia’s, his arm tightening slightly around Stiles’ shoulder. “Before we got together, Stiles was my plus one at a wedding a few years ago that had that band and it was the first time-“ Derek hesitates for a second before blowing out a breath and continuing on. “We were dancing to one of their songs and it was the first time I realised I had feelings for him and that I wanted us to be something.”

Stiles looks at him in shock – Derek never told him this – and Derek meets his eyes with a soft smile.

“We’ll get The Swing Kings,” Stiles finds himself promising with a whisper, leaning forward and kissing Derek briefly, ignoring the pointed expression he knows is probably on Lydia’s face.

Later he tells her to call Claire back and tell her she can have the suit if she cancels her booking.

*

Stiles is wearing the suit one last time before he brings it back.

It really _is_  a nice suit. He looks  _good_  in this suit. He wanted to wow Derek with this suit. But honestly, he doesn’t mind that much, getting the band Derek wants is way more important than some stupid tux that looks like every other one on the rack as far as Stiles can tell. Lydia said she knew someone who could tailor his new suit anyway.

Stiles is too busy lost in his own mind that he only notices Derek’s in the room when he sees his reflection in the mirror. He turns around to face him, smiling slightly.

“That’s-“ Derek says dumbly. “That’s your wedding suit, right?”

Stiles laughs lightly. “Yeah but it, uh, doesn’t really fit right so I’ve gotta bring it back. By the way, Lydia booked The Swing Kings.”

Derek nods absently, eyes trailing down Stiles’ body and back up again. Stiles can’t help but smirk when Derek meets his eyes. “See something you like?” he teases.

Derek nods again, stepping closer and fitting his hands against Stiles’ waist. “Are you sure you have to take it back?” he asks, ducking forward to nose at Stiles’ jaw.

Stiles tips his head back involuntarily, eyes drifting closed. “Mhm,” he hums faintly, hands tightening on Derek’s side. “So you can’t rip it.”

Derek huffs a laugh against his neck and it makes him shiver which really only spurs Derek on as he starts mouthing at Stiles’ pulse point.

Stiles lasts all of twenty seconds before he’s cupping Derek’s face and dragging him upwards to crush their lips together and begin walking them back towards the bed. “Well maybe you can rip it a little bit,” he mumbles against Derek’s mouth.

The suit’s returned mostly intact – Claire and her friend can handle a few popped buttons.

 


	17. The One With Monica and Chandler's Wedding

“I’m getting married today!” Stiles yells, racing out of Scott’s spare room and promptly tripping over his own feet, face-planting the floor.

“Yeah you are, bud!” Scott exclaims enthusiastically, smiling brightly when Stiles sits up and locks eyes with him.

“Derek’s gonna marry me,” Stiles whispers in amazement. He’s gonna stand on an altar later and tell Derek how much he loves him in front of  _everyone_. It’s surprising how un-scary that sounds.

“He’s the luckiest guy in the world,” Scott replies dutifully as Stiles pushes himself up off the floor. “Now get over here. I’ve got the breakfast of champion’s waiting. Lydia approved and everything,” he adds.

Stiles grins and wanders over to the kitchen table where Scott has set out a place mat for him and a monstrous breakfast. He drops down into the chair beside Scott and digs in, commanding himself to stop grinning every three seconds. Scott notices – obviously – and laughs at him every time Stiles gets that far off look in his eye.

“Okay dude,” Scott chuckles. “Your suit’s ready and waiting at the hotel, Lydia came to pick it up earlier. We’ll head over once you finish your breakfast and shower. Everything’s taken care of.”

Stiles sighs happily, shovelling another forkful of eggs into his mouth. “Scotty, if I wasn’t marrying Derek, I’d totally marry you.”

Scott rolls his eyes in exasperation, lips tugging up in a smirk. “Duly noted.”

Stiles tears off a bit of the croissant on his side plate – wow Scott really went all out – when Allison comes bursting in through the front door, a frantic look on her face. Her eyes focus on Stiles first and she gives him a pained smile before looking significantly at Scott. “Scott, can I talk to you? In the hall?”

“Is everything okay?” Stiles frowns, trying not to panic. What if it’s the flowers? Or the hotel was double booked? Or the guy officiating their ceremony backed out?

“Everything’s fine,” Allison says, her voice too strained to be calm. “Scott. Hallway. Now.”

Scott gives him a brief smile and hurries out into the hallway after Allison, closing the door behind him.

Stiles suddenly isn’t sure he’s hungry anymore.

*

“What is it?” Scott hisses as soon as they’re outside.

“Derek took off!” Allison whisper-yells.

“ _What?”_  Scott shouts before Allison smacks his arm and he remembers he’s supposed to keep his voice down. “What?” he repeats, quieter.

“Isaac called me and said when he and Boyd went to wake up Derek the apartment was empty and there was note saying, “Tell Stiles I’m sorry.””

“What- But that’s- Derek wouldn’t leave,” Scott says resolutely.

Allison shrugs, biting her lip anxiously.

“Did you tell Lydia?” he asks.

“God no! She’s almost as worked up about this ceremony as those two. She’d kill Derek if she got hold of him.”

“Kinda thinking of doing that myself,” Scott mutters. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would Derek leave? And why the hell would he not tell Stiles about it? Scott’s not gonna let his best friend be left at the altar.

Allison snaps her fingers in front of his face, catching his attention again. “Give Derek the angry brother talk later. Right now we have to find him and make sure he’s there to meet Stiles when the ceremony starts.”

“Okay, what d’you need me to do?”

“Keep Stiles occupied. Take him to the hotel. Get him ready with Lydia. Hopefully we’ll find Derek as soon as possible and knock some sense into him.”

“Got it,” Scott nods seriously. “Call me when you find him?”

Allison nods, darting forward to kiss his cheek before dashing back down the corridor to the elevators.

*

When Scott enters the apartment again he looks shaken and Stiles is about to have a heart attack. “What is it?” he asks immediately, standing up and moving away from the kitchen table. “Is it the hotel? Can my dad not make it? Is it Derek?”

Scott flinches for about half a second before his expression smoothens out. “N’aw dude, I told you everything’s fine. Apparently there was some mix up with the caterers but Lydia and Allison are totally on top of it. Don’t worry.”

Stiles watches him for a moment but Scott’s expression doesn’t falter so he allows himself to breathe a sigh of relief. “Man, you scared me there for a second,” he says, huffing a laugh. “I thought for sure everything was ruined.”

“Stiles, relax. You’re best man’s got you covered.” Scott smiles at him, clamping his hands down on Stiles’ shoulder and directing him to the bathroom. “Go shower. I’ll get your overnight bag to take to the hotel and we can leave as soon as you’re finished.”

“Okay.” Stiles closes the bathroom door behind him and takes a look at himself in the mirror. He still looks the same. It’s like on your birthday when you look in the mirror and expect to look suddenly different because you’re a year older. He feels like the gravity of what’s happening today should be visible on his face. Which- he guesses it kind of is, since he can’t stop smiling.

*

Lydia beams with pride when she steps back after fixing Stiles’ bow tie.

“How do I look?” he asks bashfully, glancing down at his tux and back up at Lydia.

“ _Magnificent_ ,” she breathes. If Stiles didn’t know any better he’d almost think she was going to cry. “You’re gonna knock him dead, Stiles.”

“You look amazing, man,” Scott adds, giving him an encouraging smile.

Stiles nods, feeling kind of dazed. This whole day is surreal and it hasn’t even begun properly yet. “Can you guys give me a minute?” he asks. “I just need a second to try and let this all sink in.”

Lydia nods in understanding.

“Sure thing, buddy,” Scott says. “I’ve gotta check in with Allison anyway.” Scott holds the door open for Lydia before following her out and closing it behind him.

As soon as they’re gone Stiles zooms straight over to the vanity where his phone is sitting – neither Lydia nor Scott has let him touch it all morning, saying he can talk to Derek when they’re at the altar.

He calls his speed dial and presses the phone to his ear, smiling involuntarily when Derek picks up.

“Stiles?” he answers hesitantly.

“Hey,” Stiles replies gently. “How’re you holding up?”

“I- where are you?”

Stiles furrows his brow in confusion. Where does Derek expect him to be? “In the hotel room? I just got finished getting ready. Why? Where are  _you?”_

Derek doesn’t answer and Stiles can hear heavy breathing on the other end of the line.

“Der? Where are you?”

“The place where we had our first date,” Derek says quickly then promptly hangs up.

Stiles presses the end call button, staring at his phone perplexedly. What is he – oh god, Derek’s freaking out.

Stiles pockets his phone, hurrying to the doorway. He peeks his head out into the hallway but no one’s around so he slips out of the room, making a dash for the elevators while checking the time on his phone. He’s got two hours to get to Derek’s office and back.

*

“I can’t find Stiles!” Scott yells, bursting into the hotel room Allison, Lydia and Erica are getting ready in.

“ _What?”_  Lydia screeches. “He can’t run away. Derek will freak.”

“Uh, that’s the thing-“ Scott scratches the back of his head awkwardly. “Derek kind of took off this morning?”

Lydia goes very still, she honestly looks like she’s not breathing. “I’m going to skin them alive,” she hisses fiercely after taking a deep cleansing breath.

“What d’you mean you can’t find Stiles?” Allison asks then, redirecting his attention.

“He asked for a few minutes alone and when I went back into his room he was gone.”

“Did you try calling him?” Erica asks, tugging anxiously at the curlers in her hair.

“Yeah, it keeps going straight to voicemail,” Scott replies apprehensively.

“I can’t believe we have two runaway grooms,” Allison says in disbelief.

*

Derek hears his office window open about thirty minutes after he gets off the phone with Stiles. He looks over his shoulder and sees Stiles climbing through the window in his suit.

Stiles sits down next to him and Derek suddenly feels incredibly guilty that he’s got his fiancé sitting on the ground of his office balcony in his fancy suit. Stiles doesn’t complain though, just draws his knees up and wraps his arms loosely around his legs. “Hey,” he says softly, nudging Derek’s shoulder with his own.

“Hey,” Derek replies, smiling weakly.

“What’s up?”

Derek is hit with the fierce sense that he doesn’t deserve Stiles. He doesn’t deserve someone who goes through what Derek’s put him through this morning and is still there to help him.

“I’m sorry,” he says shakily, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I got scared.”

“That’s okay,” Stiles whispers tenderly before huffing out a laugh and looking around. “I can’t believe our first date was on your office balcony while you were working late.”

“Hey it was romantic!” Derek protests, smiling in spite of himself. “We watched the sun rise, had a romantic dinner…”

“We had Pizza Hut,” Stiles laughs. “Best first date I’ve ever been on though.”

“Me too,” he admits quietly.

“Do you want to marry me?” Stiles asks after a moment’s silence, the first sign of nerves he’s shown since he got here.

Derek meets his gaze, sees the trepidation in his eyes and finds himself nodding fervently. “ _Of course_.”

Stiles smiles softly, reaching over and twining his fingers with Derek’s. “What are we doing up here then?”

“I just- this is a lot,” he tries to explain, holding Stiles’ hand in a death-like grip, terrified he’ll pull away. “I mean, I never- I never thought anyone would want to be with me forever and now you’re here and I- I always screw these things up, Stiles. My history speaks for itself. I just- I want you forever and I’m so scared that I’ll do something to mess it up.”

“Well running away is kind of counter-productive, don’t’cha think?” Stiles says lightly, grinning when he catches Derek’s eye.

“Derek, it’s  _okay_ ,” he says then, gently easing his hand out of Derek’s. He only has a second to panic before Stiles is wrapping his arm around him and pulling him close, resting their temples together. “You don’t think I’m scared?” he asks quietly. “I’m  _terrified_  but I know I wanna be with you. And that’s all I need to know to be sure this’ll work out.”

Derek nods, turning his head to kiss Stiles’ cheek. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “Can we go get married?”

Stiles turns his head and presses a chaste kiss to his lips. “Definitely.”

*

Stiles and Derek walk back into the hotel hand in hand with forty minutes to spare. It’s fine until he sees Scott, Lydia, Allison and Boyd waiting for them in the lobby.

“I’m going to kill you,” Lydia threatens, marching forward and catching them both by the ear and tugging them along, ignoring Stiles’ squawks of protest.

“Boyd, get Derek dressed,” she commands, handing Derek off to Boyd who grabs him by the arm and hauls him away.

“Stiles, what did you do to your pants?” she demands in horror, pulling him down the hallway with Scott and Allison hot on their heels.

“Where’d you go?” Scott asks, falling into step on Stiles’ other side.

“Why didn’t you tell me Derek was freaking out?” Stiles says instead of answering as Lydia manhandles him into the elevator.

“You found him,” Allison surmises, smiling slightly.

“Yes, I called him,” Stiles sniffs. “And when I realised what happened he told me where he was and I went to go get him.”

“This is all very sweet but Stiles if I can’t get this dirt of your pants I swear to god-“

“It’s just dust from the balcony at Derek’s office,” Stiles huffs.

“ _You sat on the ground in these pants?!”_

Stiles shrinks away from her, leaning into Scott. He really doesn’t want to get murdered on his wedding day.

Scott laughs as Lydia starts swatting at the loose dirt and gravel on his pants, grumbling about how he’s not paying her enough for this.

“I’ll send you on an all-expenses paid vacation when I get back from my honeymoon,” he tells her solemnly.

“You better,” she huffs, stepping back. “Okay. I think you’ll pass.”

He rolls his eyes. “Thanks.”

*

Standing at the altar with Derek is a complete blur.

He knows the officiator is talking, knows his dad is beaming in the front row, knows Scott is standing on the step below him with the ring box but all he can really feel is Derek next to him.

He feels anticipation and nervousness and excitement and an overwhelming sense that this is  _right_ , this is where he’s supposed to be.

When it’s time for the vows Scott steps forward and hands him the ring before he turns to Derek.

He swivels to Derek, smiling tremulously and taking Derek’s left hand in both of his. He stares down at Derek’s hand when he talks, isn’t sure if he can actually meet his gaze. “I uh- It took me a really long time to write these,” he says, laughing slightly and squeezing Derek’s fingers. “Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because there was so many things I wanted to say to you and promise you that if I had my way we’d be here for another six hours.”

The guests laugh and he looks up briefly to see Derek smiling at him. It spurs him on and he forces himself to keep Derek’s gaze. “I love you so much and you deserve  _everything_ , Derek. I want to spend the rest of my life giving you everything.” He’s taken aback when he sees Derek’s eyes watering because Derek never cries and when he does, Stiles cries. But he forces himself to keep going. “You’re worth the world and I swear I’m going to prove it to you every day. Okay? Because I know you don’t always believe me when I tell you that.”

He breaks his gaze away from Derek and looks down at their hands again, loosening his grip on Derek’s hand so he can slide the ring onto his finger. “And every time you look at this ring I want you to remember that I love you more than anything else and I’m never gonna stop. You’re it for me.”

When he looks back up his vision is blurry with unshed tears but he can make out the awed look on Derek’s face and it’s enough. Derek reluctantly lets go of his hands to turn back to Boyd and take the ring before catching his hands again.

“Stiles,” he starts, swallowing hard. “I thought this was gonna be the hardest thing I’d ever have to do. I was so scared. But standing up here with you- it’s the easiest thing in the world,” he breathes and Stiles has to release his hands for a second to reach up and wipe his eyes.

“Sitting on the balcony outside my office, lying on the couch watching dumb movies, standing on an altar holding your hands; I don’t care where we are or what we do as long as I’m doing it with  _you_. Because when I’m with you things suddenly don’t seem so scary. You’re- you’re my constant and I can’t even imagine a life that doesn’t have you in it.”

Derek glances down at their hands, carefully sliding the ring onto Stiles’ finger. “So I promise to love you more than I can even comprehend for the rest of my life and for a little bit longer after that,” he adds with a wry smile. “Because you’re everything I never knew I wanted and you’re everything I want to hold onto and you’re- you’re just everything.”

Stiles doesn’t wait for anyone to tell them they can kiss, he just rushes forward, pulling Derek into a heart-stopping kiss. He can vaguely hear the guests laughing and applauding and the officiator saying, “Uh I guess you may now kiss the groom,” but he hardly notices.

Derek’s hands are warm and his fingers press into Stiles’ hip and cradle his jaw. His own hands get lost in Derek’s hair as he pushes himself impossibly closer, feeling a shock run through him every time his lips brush Derek’s.

It’s unlike any kiss they’ve ever had before but also exactly the same. It’s familiar and easy and it tastes like home.

Stiles has a split second where he tries to imprint this into his brain so he can remember this feeling for the rest of his life but then he remembers he doesn’t have to. Because he gets to keep this feeling for the rest of his life and he gets to keep Derek.

And that’s all he needs


	18. The One After 'I Do'

“Well hello Mr. Hale,” Stiles drawls. “Or should I say, Mr _Stilinski_ -Hale?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows suggestively when Derek turns away from the bar to give him a ridiculous look.

“You’re feeling so smug right now, aren’t you?” Derek snorts as Stiles slings a lazy arm around his neck.

“Hell yeah I am! I got to marry _you_ ,” Stiles tells him emphatically, his other hand sliding over Derek’s hip and bunching up the fabric under his fingers.

Derek talks a big game but he totally melts when Stiles reminds him that they’re married. _Married!_ They got married today. They’re gonna be together forever. Stiles is surprised he hasn’t passed out from sheer euphoria yet.

“I guess that _is_ something to feel smug about,” Derek replies drily, latching onto Stiles’ waist and pulling him closer.

“Mhm,” Stiles nods, ducking forward and brushing their lips together. He gets to kiss Derek for the rest of his life now. He’s got a ring to prove it and everything. God marriage is awesome.

Derek plants a kiss on his cheek as he pulls away – he must be feeling all romantic and mushy right now; Stiles is so here for it.

“You almost ready for our first dance?” Derek murmurs. He takes one look at the panicked expression that falls over Stiles’ face and lets go of him, turning around to pick up the two glasses of champagne he’d been getting before Stiles interrupted him.

He hands one off to Stiles, one of his arms returning to Stiles’ waist. “You’ll be fine,” he assures before taking a sip.

“I know,” Stiles says shakily, taking a swig of his drink to quell his nerves. Derek’s been able to slow dance since he was a kid and Stiles knows how good he is at it so he’d decided to take lessons before the wedding to surprise him. He just wants everything to be perfect for Derek.

“Come on,” Derek says, taking Stiles’ now empty champagne glass out of his hand and setting it back down on the bar. He takes Stiles’ hand and begins to tug him away towards the dance floor. “Let’s have a practice run while nobody’s paying attention.”

Stiles nods with some trepidation, allowing himself to be dragged along until the floor underneath his feet shifts from carpet to hardwood and his feet fly out from underneath them. He doesn’t fall though because Derek’s holding his hand and has the quickest reflexes in existence so Derek’s other arm is secure around his waist before he can get too far.

“How much have you had to drink?” Derek whispers in his ear. He’s joking but Stiles smacks his arm anyway.

“Shut up,” he grumbles, straightening up as Derek’s hand slips off his waist. “I think it’s my shoes…”

He tries to take another step and his feet go sliding until Derek catches him. Yup, definitely the shoes. “Oh god this is a disaster,” he groans, thunking his head down on Derek’s shoulder. ”How am I supposed to dance with you if my feet are like a slip ‘n’ slide?”

Derek huffs a laugh right by his ear and his hands squeeze Stiles’ waist. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Stiles says morosely, lifting his head off Derek’s shoulder to meet his eyes. “I got dance lessons for you and everything.”

Derek’s face goes blank with surprise and then his entire expression is softening into this look of wide-eyed wonder and Stiles still isn’t used to that. “You took dance lessons for me?” he asks, amazed.

“I wanted it to be special,” Stiles mumbles, not meeting Derek’s eyes.

“You think I care if you can dance or not?” Derek asks gently, ducking his head to try and get Stiles to look up. “Stiles, _you married me_. For some ungodly reason, you chose me. Today is already the most special day of my life.”

Stiles groans again, pressing his forehead’s to Derek’s. “See now you’re being all romantic and I _have_ to figure out a way to dance.”

Derek grins, eyes crinkling in the corners. Because he has laugh lines now. Stiles put them there.

“Why don’t you borrow Scott’s shoes?” Derek suggests.

“His feet are freakishly small.”

“Then why don’t you just take yours off?”

“And go barefoot?” he asks incredulously. “I don’t want people to think we’re savages.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Wanna stand on my feet?”

“I’ll break your toes.”

“They’ll heal.”

“Derekkk,” Stiles whines, trying not to pout.

Derek doesn’t get a chance to reply before the DJ interrupts them. “And now,” he says into the microphone. “I believe it’s time for the grooms’ first dance?”

Crap he must’ve spotted them on the corner of the dance floor. Stiles throws Derek a terrified look as the floor clears immediately and people return to their seats or stand at the side to watch. Derek just gives him a reassuring smile and helps him to the centre of the floor. Stiles walks on his tiptoes, Derek’s arm securely around his waist and just about manages not to kill himself. So far, so good.

The song starts playing – You Make It Real by James Morrison – and Derek fits his hands against Stiles’ hips. Stiles dutifully puts his hands on Derek’s biceps – it gives him better leverage than Derek’s shoulders if he slips – and Derek pulls him in so they’re chest to chest.

“Don’t move your feet,” he murmurs, leaning close to Stiles’ ear - not that anyone would hear them in the first place – and slowly beginning to move them in a circle. Stiles keeps his feet firmly planted on the ground but the complete lack of grip on his shoes allows Derek to move him.

Derek keeps their rotation small, small enough that no one would really notice if Stiles is moving or not.

He shoots Derek a grateful smile and rests their foreheads together, closing his eyes with a sigh.

The dance floor starts filling up again after another minute or so and Stiles exhales in relief. No one’s gonna be looking at them anymore.

Derek stops moving them in circles, just keeps them gently swaying from side to side.

“You’re the best,” Stiles whispers, kissing him briefly. Derek’s not a fan of PDA but come on, it’s their wedding day. He’s allowed. “Sorry I messed this up,” he adds dejectedly.

“You didn’t,” Derek insists, pressing their lips together again and drawing him in closer.

They’re barely even dancing anymore, now that Derek’s arms circle his waist completely and Stiles’ are wrapped around his shoulders. They’re basically hugging, just swaying to keep up appearances.

Derek sighs into him, burying his face in Stiles’ neck and breathing him in. Stiles takes a second to adjust before leaning his temple against Derek’s.

“I’m really glad you married me,” he whispers, a stark contrast to the laughing and loud music all around them.

Derek’s lips brush over his pulse point when he says, “Me too.”


	19. The One With Ross' Tan

“Stiles, open the door!” Derek calls from the hallway.

“No!” Stiles yells back. He can’t see Derek right now, or ever to be honest.

“Scott told me what happened,” Derek says next. “Come on, just let me see.”

“You’re gonna laugh at me!” Derek’s a good boyfriend but he’s not impervious to humour and this is just the kinda thing that’d slay him.

“Stiles,” Derek huffs impatiently. “Would you just open the door please? I promise I won’t laugh.”

Stiles heaves a put-upon sigh and hauls himself off the couch. He cracks the door open just enough so Derek can see his face. To his credit, Derek tries extremely hard to keep a straight face but Stiles can see his lips twitching.

“You promised you wouldn’t laugh!” he accuses, stomping back into the room but not letting the door close because he kind of wants Derek to follow him.

“Stiles, I’m sorry,” Derek says sincerely and then his hand is catching Stiles’ wrist and spinning him around. “I’m not laughing, I swear. Now tell me what happened.”

Stiles makes a face but lets Derek pulls him in and settle his hands on his waist. “I wanted to get a spray tan before we went on vacation because you know how pale I am and Lydia suggested the place she always goes to but _\- the booth was so confusing, Derek!_ Okay there were nozzles on the wall and there was turning involved and counting but they didn’t specify what _type_ of counting and-“

“Stiles,” Derek says soothingly, lifting up a hand to quiet him. “Breathe.”

Stiles huffs but dutifully takes a deep breath. Derek smiles encouragingly and lets his hand drop to Stiles’ waist again. “Anyway, I kind of ended up…tanning the front of my body three times and the back of my body no times?”

Derek cracks, a laugh bursting out of him before he quickly tries to stifle it. Stiles can’t even blame him, this is fucking ridiculous.

“When’s it supposed to come off?” Derek asks, clearing his throat to keep himself from laughing again.

“Well a normal tan is supposed to last three to five days but this?”

Derek nods seriously, looking like he’s about to draw blood if he doesn’t stop biting down on his lip to prevent himself from laughing.

“Oh shut up, asshole!” Stiles smacks his chest, rolling his eyes. “You’re the one who has to be seen with me…Unless- I mean if you don’t wanna go anymore, I understand,” he offers, hoping he doesn’t sound too dejected.

“Stiles, what the hell are you talking about?” Derek asks, lifting his hands to cup Stiles’ face and force him to look up. “You could’ve dyed yourself purple and I’d still want to be seen with you.”

“Really?” Stiles questions, smiling slightly and finally wrapping his arms around Derek’s shoulders. “Even if every stranger we met came up to you and asked you why you were dating a circus freak?”

“I’d tell them you’re the smartest, funniest, most brilliant circus freak in existence and that they’re just jealous that I get to keep you for myself,” Derek tells him earnestly and Stiles can’t help it, he starts laughing.

“I knew there was a reason I loved you,” Stiles sighs happily.

“It’s because of my impressive eyebrow expressions, right?” Derek asks casually.

“Totally,” Stiles agrees, ducking forward for a kiss.

“Besides we can always just tell people you’re trying the new Nutella body scrub,” he mumbles against Stiles’ lips.


	20. The One Where Chandler Takes a Bath

Stiles slams into their apartment, grumbling under his breath irritably and shucking off his jacket with an increasingly frustrated expression.

“Hi?” Derek says cautiously, setting down his book on the coffee table.

Stiles’ grumbling only continues as he drops his briefcase on the counter unceremoniously and kicks off his shoes.

“What? No “honey I’m home!”? God, Scott and Allison were right about the honeymoon phase being over,” Derek continues offhandedly.

Stiles finally stops talking to himself and looks up, scowling for half a second before he sighs tiredly and his shoulder slump. ”Sorry,” he mumbles, scrubbing at his eyes as he wanders over to the couch and flops down next to Derek.

Derek obligingly opens his arms and lets Stiles curl into him. “Bad day at work?” Derek asks, resting his chin on the side of Stiles’ head and rubbing soothing circles on his back.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Stiles sighs before regaling him with the tale of the million and one things that went wrong today beginning with him spilling coffee on himself first thing this morning.

“Okay, come on.” Derek stands up, catching Stiles’ hand to pull him up with him.

“No,” Stiles whines. “I wanna cuddle on the couch what are you doing?” He plasters himself to Derek’s back, wrapping his arms tightly around his middle as Derek walks them to the bathroom. “Wait, are we gonna have shower sex?” he asks hopefully

Derek huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “No, I’m making you a bath.”

Stiles head lifts from where his chin had been hooked over Derek’s shoulder and Derek can feel him giving him a confused look.

“A bath?” he asks perplexedly.

“Yes, you need to relax,” Derek explains, tugging him into the bathroom. He lets go of Stiles, who immediately collapses onto the closed toilet seat, and moves to the cabinet underneath the sink, digging out a bath bomb. When he looks up Stiles is leaning over and peering into the cabinet.

“How did I not know you had a mini Bed, Bath and Beyond hidden in our bathroom cabinet?” he asks in astonishment.

“Because you never clean up in here,” Derek shrugs, smirking slyly when Stiles lets out an indignant squawk.

Derek ignores his protests and starts running the water, holding his hand underneath the tap until it hits the perfect temperature and then plugging the drain.

When the tub’s half-full he drops in the bath bomb, smiling in amusement at the fascinated glint in Stiles’ eyes as he watches the water slowly change colour. Once the bath is finally drawn Stiles eyes it sceptically for a moment before shrugging, taking off his clothes and stepping in.

The groan of pleasure he lets out as he sinks into the water isn’t one Derek usually hears outside the bedroom or when Stiles is eating. He kind of wants to beam with pride.

“You have the best ideas ever,” Stiles sighs contentedly, resting his head against the bath pillow stuck onto the tub and closing his eyes.

Derek hums in agreement and leans forward to press a kiss to Stiles’ forehead. “I’ll have dinner ready when you come out,” he promises.

“You’re the best!” Stiles yells as he’s leaving the bathroom.

*

The thing about the baths is that Stiles starts to really enjoy them. So much that, there’s no other way to put it – he’s stealing Derek’s baths, okay?

Derek will spend twenty minutes getting the bath temperature perfect and picking out just the right bath bomb, bath salts or bubble bath for his mood and will duck into the bedroom to grab his book only to come back to find Stiles already making himself comfortable in  _Derek’s_ bath.

By the tenth time it’s happened in two weeks, Derek has had enough. When he comes into the bathroom and finds Stiles after stealing his bath  _again_ , he angrily strips off his clothes and climbs into the tub too.

Stiles yelps in surprise, hastily sitting up so his legs aren’t in Derek’s way. “What are you doing?” he asks incredulously.

“This is  _my_  bath,” Derek says – a little petulantly, he can admit.

Stiles is silent for a minute before realisation dawns. “Why didn’t you just say?”

“You’ve been doing it for the past two weeks,” Derek mutters, looking down and feeling embarrassed.

He doesn’t look up until he hears the swishing of water and suddenly he’s got an armful of Stiles. “I thought you were making them for me,” Stiles admits sheepishly, hands sliding over Derek’s shoulders.

“I want you to have nice things,” Derek mumbles. “But sometimes I need them too and-“

Stiles squeezes his shoulder, shushing him and smiling softly. “I get it,” he replies quietly. “Wanna do nice things together this time?”

Derek nods, lips quirking up in an involuntary smile as Stiles lets go of his shoulders, turning around and settling his back against Derek’s chest. Derek slides his arms around Stiles’ middle, twining their fingers together. “I like these kinda baths better anyway,” he admits after a moment.

He can’t see Stiles’ face but he can tell he’s grinning. “Me too.”

 


	21. The One With The Race Car Bed

Stiles and Derek kind of…break their bed.

It’s an accident! An overenthusiastic, very  _fun_  accident but an accident nonetheless.

Stiles isn’t all that bothered honestly, especially when he convinces Derek they should just get a new mattress too – aw yeah he’s totally getting memory foam. Also, bed shopping? Literally the best kind of shopping in existence. Because it’s legitimately part of the process of sampling the merchandise to  _sit down_. That’s Stiles’ kind of shopping.

The Mattress King looks like a giant store room more than anything else, filled with five long rows of beds of varying sizes.

“Oh what about this one?” Stiles exclaims, letting go of Derek’s hand and making a beeline for California King bed that’s covered in satin sheets. He sinks down onto it, sighing blissfully. Derek wanders over a moment later, scanning the price-tag hung on one of the posters of the bed before snorting and moving to catch Stiles’ hands.

“Think again,” he scoffs, hauling Stiles up onto his feet.

“But it’s so comfy!” Stiles complains, sliding his arms around Derek’s waist. “Just for a week and then we’ll take it back,” he begs.

Derek huffs a laugh, reaching behind his back to catch one of Stiles’ hands and pull him away. “Why don’t we find one more in our price range?” he suggests.

“Buzzkill,” Stiles mutters under his breath, dancing away when Derek tries to elbow him. He glues himself back to Derek’s side a second later, swinging their joined hands between them.

“What about that one?” Derek asks, pointing to a generic-looking bed a few feet down.

“I want a cool bed,” Stiles huffs. “Not a boring married couple one.”

“We  _are_  a boring married couple,” Derek points out.

“Are not!” he snaps indignantly. “We’re very exciting. And adventurous.”

“Right,” Derek agrees. “The other night where I gave you a foot rub and we fell asleep watching Scrubs reruns? That was wild! I still haven’t recovered.”

“Shut up,” Stiles mumbles, shoulder-checking him and wandering over to the  _boring_  bed Derek picked out. He sits down, pulling Derek with him and bouncing a little.

“Well it’s springy!” he announces, grinning at Derek rolling his eyes.

“It’s comfortable,” Derek counters. “And the frame’s nice. Matches our bedroom.”

“I guess,” Stiles concedes, looking longingly at the four poster bed across from them.  _It has a canopy and everything!_

“Stiles.”

“Fine! We’ll get the married people bed.”

*

“This isn’t what we ordered,” Derek says flatly.

“I can see that,” Stiles replies, standing next to him and staring down at their new bed.

“Did you order a race car bed while I was in the bathroom?”

“What?  _No!”_  Stiles insists, affronted. “They must’ve messed up the order.”

“We need to take it back.” Derek’s already fishing his phone out of his pocket and Stiles shoots a hand out to stop him. Derek stares at him in confusion and Stiles smiles uneasily.

“Wait- just- maybe we could keep it for a while.”

Derek looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “Stiles it’s a children’s bed,” he says incredulously.

“I know! I just- I always wanted a race car bed when I was a kid and I never got one-“

“You realise you’re twenty-six now, right?”

“I  _know_ ,” Stiles huffs, scowling at Derek. “Just-“ he cuts off, stepping into Derek’s space, fingers playing with the fabric of Derek’s shirt. “Don’t you wanna take me for a ride?” he asks coyly, looking up from beneath his eyelashes.

Derek stares at him, dumbfounded, for about five seconds before groaning so loudly Stiles is pretty sure their neighbours hear. “You did  _not_  just say that,” he cringes, rolling his eyes heavenward like he can’t even remember why he’s married to Stiles right now.

“Worth a shot,” Stiles shrugs. “Also the look on your face was priceless so…” he adds with a grin.

Derek rolls his eyes, not putting up much of a fight when Stiles pulls him down onto the mattress. “Just take a nap on it,” Stiles encourages. “We can take it back in a couple of hours.”

Derek is glowering at him but Stiles ignores him in favour of kicking off his shoes and jeans and picking their comforter up off the floor. Eventually there’s a huff from beside him and Derek begins following suit. Once his jeans and shoes are off, he picks up their pillows and sets one down on the left side of the bed just as Stiles lies down.

He puts down his own pillow, fluffing it and fussing until Stiles sighs, put-upon, and he finally lies down.

Stiles wastes no time before rolling into Derek’s space. He darts in to kiss Derek once, twice before turning onto his other side and waiting expectantly for Derek’s arm to curl around him.

Derek pulls the covers up over them, moulding himself against Stiles’ back and sliding his arm around Stiles’ stomach. Stiles sighs contentedly, settling his own arm over Derek’s and folding their fingers together.

Stiles closes his eyes as Derek hooks his chin over his shoulder and presses a gentle kiss to his jaw. “You comfy enough?” he murmurs against Stiles’ chin. It’s something he does every night when they’re getting ready to go to sleep. It’s stupidly endearing.

“Mhm,” Stiles hums, pretty sure his smile is evident in his voice.

Derek doesn’t say anything else but he pulls his head back until his forehead is pressed to the nape of Stiles’ neck – Stiles loves when he does that, he likes feeling Derek’s breaths tickling the base of his neck when his drifting off to sleep.

As soon as they stop moving Stiles feels his limbs starting to relax. Within a matter of minutes he feels like he’s nodding off, precariously straddling the line of sleep and awake. Of course that’s when Derek tries to roll him over.

“Sorry,” Derek whispers. “My other arm is falling asleep.”

Stiles isn’t awake enough to be annoyed so he just nods sleepily, rolling over and chasing Derek’s warmth. He sinks into Derek’s arms again, his head falling to rest on Derek’s pillow instead of his own and his chin resting on Derek’s shoulder.

Derek’s arms wind tightly around him, one of his hands snaking up to card his fingers through Stiles’ hair. Stiles practically  _purrs_  - god Derek knows him so well.

“Love you,” he mumbles when Derek’s other hand starts gently trailing up and down his back.

“Love you too,” Derek murmurs. He sounds barely awake, like his hands are moving on autopilot more than anything else. Stiles forces one of his eyes open and sees Derek’s head lolled to one side so they’re face to face, eyes closed and foreheads just shy of touching.

He pushes himself up to close the distance between them, planting a sloppy kiss on Derek’s lips – even though he kind of misses his mouth – and rubbing their noses together before letting his head drop back onto the pillow.

Derek’s eyes flutter for a moment and then they focus on Stiles. He smiles – a devastating,  _adoring_  smile that always makes Stiles’ chest constrict.

His eyes droop shut again so Stiles let his own fall closed, tangling his fingers with Derek’s when Derek’s hand falls from where he’d been playing with Stiles’ hair.

“Stiles?” Derek whispers a few minutes later, voice sleep-addled and rough.

“Hmm?”

“The bed’s not so bad after all.” 

 


	22. The One Where Chandler Gets Caught

“Shouldn’t Stiles be here by now?” Allison asks, taking a sip of her tea.

“He called me earlier and said he’d be late,” Scott answers with a shrug. “He said he was stuck at work or something.”

“That doesn’t really look like he’s stuck at work,” Lydia says faintly, eyes focused on something outside the window. Scott follows her gaze and sees Stiles getting out of a cab with a blonde woman. They’re smiling and talking enthusiastically, Stiles gives her a hug and she kisses his cheek before they part ways.

Scott has a split second to gape in shock before he realises Stiles is coming their way. “Be cool!” he hisses, prompting everyone to snap their gaze away from the window as Stiles comes through the door.

Stiles waves cheerfully as he makes his way to the counter to order his coffee and the four of them hunch in close so he won’t be able to overhear.

“I can’t  _believe_  Stiles would cheat on Derek,” Lydia whispers hotly.

“I can’t believe Stilinski pulled _two_  people out of his league,” Jackson scoffs and Lydia whacks his arm.

“Guys, don’t jump to conclusions,” Scott admonishes. “I’m sure there’s a totally valid explanation.”

“We’ll just ask Stiles what he was doing before he got here,” Allison adds calmly. “We’re probably making something out of nothing.”

They quieten down as Stiles comes over with his coffee, settling into the space on the couch beside Allison. “What’s up?” he asks unassumingly, sinking back against the cushions.

“Not much,” Allison replies casually. “Scott said you were gonna be late. What were you up to?”

“Oh-“ Stiles falters for a second, face going blank, but he recovers quickly. “I was just running late at work, that’s all.”

“Alone?” Lydia questions, her tone carefully conversational.

Stiles gives her a sidelong glance but nods after a moment. “Yup. Just me. On my lonesome.”

Lydia gives a non-committal hum in answer and Stiles directs the conversation elsewhere. Scott tries to pay attention but all he can focus on is one thing.

Stiles lied.

*

“Hey,” Stiles greets as he closes the front door behind him. He moves into their little kitchen area and Derek drifts away from the stove long enough to accept a kiss.

“Did Erica take you to the house today?” Derek asks, idly stirring the marinara sauce.

“Uh huh,” Stiles nods, leaning against the counter next to the stove.

Derek looks up when he doesn’t say any more. “ _And?”_  he prompts.

Stiles keeps up a pokerface for all of five seconds before grinning widely. “I love it,” he exclaims. “I love it, Derek. It’s  _the_  house. It’s  _our_ house.”

Derek smiles softly, setting down the wooden spoon and turning to face Stiles, linking their hands together. “You really like it?” he asks hopefully.

Stiles nods earnestly. As Erica had walked him through the house, telling him about all the different rooms, Stiles had seen a future laid out in front of him – falling asleep on the couch with Derek from staying up too late binge-watching Netflix, painting a nursery, playing in the yard with their future kids, Saturday night dinners in the dining room – he’d seen it all.

He’d seen the life he wants with Derek.

“So we’re gonna buy a house?” Derek says, lips tugging up in a barely contained grin.

“We’re gonna buy a house,” Stiles confirms, resting his forehead against Derek’s and just taking a second to let that sink in. They’re going to have a  _home_.

“I’ll let Erica know we’re putting down an offer,” Derek whispers.

*

Scott would like to point out in advance that he’s entirely against this plan but well, they’re following Stiles. When they’d seen him get into a car with the same blonde woman again a few days later Lydia had declared they had to follow him to get to the bottom of this.

So now here they are, sitting in an idling cab outside a giant house in a friendly neighbourhood outside the city, waiting for Stiles and the blonde woman to emerge.

They don’t come out for about forty minutes and when they do, Stiles is grinning from ear to ear. It doesn’t exactly paint a promising picture.

*

Stiles is sitting by himself in the coffee shop when he’s suddenly surrounded. Lydia and Scott plunk down on either side of him and Allison takes a seat next to Scott while Jackson takes the arm chair, leaning forward on his elbows.

“Alright, out with it,” Jackson demands.

Stiles raises his eyebrows. “Out with what?”

“How’d you pull it off?” Jackson continues. “There’s no way you’ve got that much game.”

“Jackson!” Lydia reprimands before turning her piercing gaze back to Stiles. “Why are you lying to us?”

“I’m not lying?” Stiles replies confusedly, eyes flickering from Jackson and Lydia to Scott and Allison.

Scott holds his gaze the longest, giving him a pleading look. “Stiles, we  _know_ , okay? Just tell us how this happened?”

“Know  _what?”_ Stiles asks, feeling completely lost. He’s pretty sure they’re having two totally different conversations right now.

“We know you’re cheating on Derek,” Allison says, biting her lip worriedly.

“ _What?”_  Stiles screeches.

“What?”

Stiles’ head snaps up and he sees Derek standing next to the arm of the couch, frozen in shock. A few moments later he finally realises he hasn’t actually said anything and immediately shoots out of his seat to grab hold of Derek in case he tries to leave.

“I’m not cheating on you,” he says sincerely, catching Derek’s hands in his and giving them a squeeze. He whirls around then to face the rest for the group. “I’m not cheating on him.”

“Then why did you lie about where you were the other day?” Jackson cuts in.

“And what were you doing in that house with that blonde woman today?” Lydia adds.

Realisation dawns on Stiles and he shares a look with Derek before explaining. “That blonde woman is Derek’s friend Erica. She’s a realtor,” he adds before taking a deep breath and admitting, “Derek and I are buying a house.”

A grin instantly breaks out on Scott face, all ideas of accusation completely lost. “You are?” he asks excitedly.

“That’s why I came down here actually,” Derek tells them before talking directly to Stiles. “Erica called… We got the house.”

Stiles feels his eyes widen as he spins around to look back at Derek. “We got the house?” he echoes in disbelief.

“We got the house,” Derek nods, barely tamping down on his smile until Stiles jumps on him, hugging him fiercely. Derek squeezes back tightly and Stiles laughs when three other pairs of arms envelop them – Jackson’s too cool for group hugs.

“I’m so happy for you!” he hears Allison exclaim from somewhere behind him.

“I better get my own room,” Scott adds.

“I’m in charge of interior design,” Lydia says, leaving no room for argument.

Stiles leans slightly away from Derek to lock eyes with him and see the exasperation, fondness and all round contentment he feels mirrored in Derek’s expression.

He might be excited about their house and the life he’s gonna build with Derek there but this right here? This is home.


	23. The One Where Derek Can't Flirt

The doorbell rings just as they’re settling down to marathon the latest season of Criminal Minds and Derek is up and off the couch in an instant. “I’ll get it!” he yells, bounding over to the door.

“Tell Stiles hi!” Erica singsongs and Derek would turn around to flip her off if it meant he wouldn’t be keeping Stiles waiting. Stiles is the pizza delivery guy who just so happens to also be the guy Derek has been half in love for like, two months now.

He swings open the door and does his best attempt to plaster a smile on his face when he sees Stiles standing there, pizzas is in hand. Stiles’ face lights up when he sees him and Derek cheers internally.

“Hey dude!” Stiles exclaims. “How’s your evening going?”

“Pretty good,” Derek shrugs offhandedly, scanning Stiles to find something he can compliment him on.

After a few seconds of awkward silence Derek blurts out, “Your hair!”

Stiles startles, giving him a confused smile. “What about it?”

“It’s um- it’s different?” It is, the last time Derek saw him without a hat on, he had a buzzcut. Now’s it’s all soft-looking and fluffy and _tuggable_.

Stiles’ confusion clears and he smirks. “Thanks, I grew it myself.”

Derek laughs to cover his wince – why does he always get so nervous around Stiles?

“So uh, here’re your pizzas,” Stiles says smoothly, handing over the boxes. “That’ll be nineteen-fifty.”

“Shouldn’t it be twenty-fifty?” Derek asks.

Stiles shrugs with a sheepish smile, “For you? I think I can wave the delivery charge.”

Derek panics, trying to think of something flirty to say and shoves forty dollars at Stiles. “Keep the change!” he yells, cringing.

“Dude this is like forty bucks?” Stiles says disbelievingly, staring down at the money in his hand and then up at Derek.

“For your services,” Derek blurts and then realises what that sounds like. “I mean- just- you’re such a good delivery guy and you’ve never messed up our order so-“

Stiles stops him with a hand, biting his lip like he’s trying not to laugh. “If you say so, Derek,” he says amusedly, offering him a dazzling smile. “See you next week?”

Derek nods mutely and closes the door.

When he turns around there’s five pairs of eyes looking at him in varying degrees of amusement and pity.

“ _Dude_ ,” Isaac hisses incredulously.

“That was a train wreck,” Cora says bluntly.

“Shut up,” Derek grumbles, dropping the pizza boxes on the coffee table as he sits down on the couch again.

“Honey, how does someone with a face like yours have flirting skills that _bad_?” Erica asks disbelievingly.

“I’m not bad at flirting,” Derek huffs indignantly, purposely taking the biggest slice of pepperoni pizza to piss her off.

“Derek,” Boyd deadpans, giving him an unimpressed look. “You’re literally the definition of the phrase “he’s lucky he’s pretty”.”

Derek glares at him but Laura squeezes his shoulder to catch his attention. “He doesn’t mean you have nothing else to offer,” she says encouragingly. “You have plenty to offer! You’re a catch! It’s just- you’re not very good at the whole…flirting thing because it makes you nervous, and that’s _okay_.”

“Except when we’re around to watch because the second-hand embarrassment hurts my brain,” Cora intones.

“I’m not bad at flirting,” Derek insists.

“Dude, Stiles has been delivering us pizza every Saturday night for almost three months and you still haven’t made a move,” Isaac points out.

“I can flirt, okay?”

“Call him back then,” Erica suggests innocently, though her smile is anything but. “Order another pizza and ask him out this time.”

“I-“ He doesn’t want to do it because deep down he knows he’s a mess when he talks to Stiles but he wants to wipe the amused grins off his friends’ faces so he takes out his cell and orders another extra-large, specifically asking for Stiles.

Waiting thirty minutes is agonising and Derek almost calls to cancel at least half a dozen times but when there’s finally a knock at the door he can’t help the feeling of anticipation that settles in his stomach.

He goes to the door at a more casual pace this time, leaning against the doorframe once he opens it.

Stiles is already smiling widely, holding the pizza out with both hands. “Heard you asked for me _specifically_ ,” he teases, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Derek smirks in a way that he _thinks_ is seductive. “What can I say? You’re my favourite delivery guy.”

There’s a bark of laughter from the living room and pitiful, “Oh Derek.”

So he straightens up and takes the pizza off Stiles, setting it on the counter by the door. Stiles gives him a peculiar look like he can’t tell if that’s a joke or not but he smiles nonetheless.

“Thanks? …I think?”

“I just meant-“ he cuts himself off, sighing. God what is he even doing? He doesn’t know how to flirt, least of all with Stiles. “Look, I’m sorry. This is creepy and I’m being weird.” He hands Stiles a twenty, barely meeting his eyes as he does. “Keep the change,” he mutters. “Sorry for interrupting your night.”

“Wait. Derek!” Stiles puts a hand on the door so he can’t close it. “Did I miss something here?” he asks, looking so sincere and genuine and fuck it, Derek should just tell him. They can always switch pizza places.

“I like you,” he mumbles. “I have for a while.”

Stiles trips over _thin air_ and Derek stares at him in astonishment as he rights himself. “You do?!” he splutters.

“…Yeah?” he replies uncertainly.

“But you’re-“ Stiles flounders for a moment, gesturing wildly with his hand. “You’re like a _Greek God_.”

Derek starts, blinking at him in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve been trying to get you to notice me for months!” Stiles clarifies, still looking shell-shocked.

“So why didn’t you say anything when I was flirting?” Derek asks and then immediately regrets it when he sees the perplexed look on Stiles’ face.

“Wait. When were you-“  He stops, eyes widening in dawning realisation and Derek really wants to close the door.

“Earlier?!” Stiles asks hysterically. “And every other night. That was _flirting_?”

“I’m not very good at it,” Derek mumbles, looking down so Stiles won’t see his face flush with embarrassment. There’s silence for a few seconds and when Derek eventually looks up again Stiles is looking at him with the most enamoured expression.

“Oh you are just too adorable,” Stiles practically coos. “A devastatingly hot guy _and_ a total goober? I’ve hit the fucking jackpot. Scotty’s gonna be so jealous.”

“So…” Derek pauses, unsure where this leaves them and what the hell just happened. “You like me then?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Stiles enunciates, rolling his eyes and smiling like Derek is the most endearing thing he’s ever seen.

“And you’ll go out with me?”

“I already put my number on the pizza receipt,” Stiles winks, smirking when Derek’s mouth drops open. “Just tell me when. I can use the thirty dollars in tips you gave me to take us out.”

“Then wouldn’t I be taking us out?”

“Psh no, I earned this money. For my _services_ ,” he leers before breaking down into sniggers.

Derek closes the door in his face but opens it up again when Stiles keeps banging. Stiles calls the pizza place ten minutes later and tells them he’s stuck in traffic so he and Derek can make out on the fire escape.


	24. The One With The Boobies

It’s accident.

Derek will go to his grave swearing it was an accident.

The thing is he runs out of toothpaste and going all the way to the store when he isn’t even dressed yet seems a bit excessive. So he just heads across the hall to Scott and Stiles’ apartment – they’re barely functioning living on their own but even _they_ have to have basic dental hygiene, right?

The door’s unlocked because it’s always unlocked and when he doesn’t find either of them in the kitchen or living room he figures they’re still sleeping or just getting changed or something. He can return the toothpaste before they even know it’s gone.

He opens the bathroom door completely unassumingly, not even noticing the sound of running water being cut off. He’s about to head for the sink when there’s a screech of horror for the shower. His head snaps in that direction involuntarily and suddenly he’s got an eyeful of Stiles’…everything.

Stiles smacks a hand over his crotch the same time Derek smacks a hand over his own eyes and yells, “I’m sorry!” before stumbling out of the bathroom and back to the safety of his own apartment.

Oh god.

*

“Was it…big?” Erica asks far too interestedly.

“ _Erica!”_ Derek hisses, feeling his face heat up. This is so mortifying.

“What? I’ve always wondered,” she shrugs shamelessly.

“He was…very well-endowed,” Derek admits begrudgingly and Erica adopts a Cheshire Cat grin.

“Is that so?” she says slyly and Derek would love it if the ground would open up and swallow him whole right about now.

“Don’t,” he warns, pinching the bridge of his nose when she gives him that frustratingly innocent look that’s anything but.

“What? Don’t suggest that your crush on Stiles is all the more valid now that you’ve seen the merchandise? Don’t mock you for handling the situation in the least smooth way possible? Don’t what, Derek?”

“All of the above,” he sighs, burying his face in his hands.

*

Stiles can admit the way he decides to handle the situation is a little…unorthodox. But Derek got to see him naked it’s only fair he returns the favour!

So he waits, because Derek is OCD as fuck about his daily routine and Stiles knows what time he takes his showers. When he lets himself into Derek’s apartment and hears the water running he fist pumps triumphantly, creeping across the living room and slowly opening the bathroom door.

It creaks a little but Derek probably can’t hear it over the water. He tiptoes up to the curtain, curls his fingers in it and rips it back, yelling, “Surprise motherfucker!” to Derek’s bewildered face. Derek’s so shocked he doesn’t even try to cover himself up; he’s just kind of frozen.

His idea was good in theory and everything but Stiles didn’t really prepare himself for getting to look at Derek’s well- little Derek. And yeah, little Derek? Not so little.

Oh god, he didn’t think this through at all. He’s gonna pass out or say something stupid or stare for way to long, or- or-

So he does the only natural thing one should do in this situation – he runs away.

*

It becomes a thing after that.

Some weird, stupid game of chicken where they keep barging in on each other’s showers. It honestly feels strange when Stiles takes a shower and Derek doesn’t make in appearance – whether in fantasy or reality.

It’s _really_ not helping the sexual tension though. Like that’s always been a part of their friendship – something Stiles long since accepted once he realised he was harbouring a monster crush on Derek – but this whole, “let’s look at each other naked on the regular” thing is kind of giving Stiles the worst case of blue balls ever.

It’s sort of what leads him to take action one fateful Saturday evening when he’s got the apartment to himself. Predictably, Derek flings back the shower curtain two minutes into his shower and Stiles gives him a considering look.

“If you’re gonna look,” he hears himself saying. “You might as well join me.”

Derek’s frozen for a second and Stiles can almost see his brain trying to process what just happened but then he meets Stiles’ gaze and suddenly he’s smirking and stripping off his t-shirt and _holy shit Stiles didn’t actually expect that to work?!_

“Don’t mind if I do,” Derek says casually, stepping out of his pants and boxer briefs before stepping over the lip of the bath tub.

It’s the best shower Stiles has ever had.


	25. The One With The Routine

Derek is having coffee with his sisters when his new roommate, Stiles, breezes in, looking delectable as always. Stiles is a model and has been sent straight from the pits of Hell to torture Derek.

Ever since Derek moved out of home he’s had a strict no-dating-the-roommate policy and when Stiles had shown up for the interview he’d wanted nothing more than to tell him the room was taken but he wasn’t. Except Stiles had been the only person even remotely normal who’d shown up which meant Derek had to swallow his pride, push down his feelings and offer him the room.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy watching Stiles parade around half-naked or hanging out with his model friends or worst of all, being on set for Stiles’ shoots.

Still, they’ve built up a pretty good friendship over the last couple of months.

“Hey!” Stiles says brightly, accepting the coffee Derek had already ordered for him before he arrived with a kind smile and the incline of his head. “So guess what happened to me today?”

“Something involving cameras and half-naked girls?” Cora guesses, sounding bored. It’s a front; she loves Stiles, she’d just never admit it to his face.

“No,” Stiles snorts before he starts smiling sheepishly. “Well, yeah. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I got cast as a dancer in the Times Square New Year’s Eve party thingy!”

The words have hardly sunk in for Derek when Cora and Laura’s faces both freeze and they turn to him slowly. “New Year’s  _Rockin’ Eve?!”_  Laura basically screeches.

Stiles’ eyes widen in either surprise or fear and Derek tries not to laugh at the way Stiles is almost leaning into him. “Uh, yeah?” he answers uncertainly.

“I hate you,” Cora says vehemently, crossing her arms like a petulant child.

“We  _love_ that show,” Laura explains. “Mom used always lets us stay up to watch it. Me and Cora even had a routine-“

“Do you wanna come?” Stiles asks, lips quirked in amusement as Derek’s sisters look like they’re about to combust with anticipation.

“Really?” Cora asks suspiciously but she can’t keep the hopefulness off her face.

“Sure,” Stiles laughs. “They said I could bring a few friends. I was actually coming here to ask Derek if he wanted to be my dance partner,” he adds shyly, looking up from underneath his eyelashes as he takes a sip of his coffee.

And that- did he just ask Derek to spend New Year’s with him?!

Derek wants to say something smooth, even something sweet like “I’d love to spend New Year’s with you,” would do. Instead he blurts out, “But I can’t dance.”

Stiles’ face falls as he tries not to look too disappointed but then Laura kicks Derek’s shin and he manages to stammer out a better reply.

“But uh- I mean how hard could it be?” he says quickly. “Everyone’s drunk on New Year’s anyway, right?”

Stiles bites his lip, holding back a smile as he ducks his head and ugh, Derek wants him so bad.

“Well uh, we’re not actually filming on New Year’s Eve,” Stiles replies. “The party’s pre-recorded but you can act drunk if it helps you get through it,” he continues teasingly and Derek rolls his eyes to cover up the way his ears are flushing.

“I think I’ll survive,” he says drily.

Stiles beams at him before redirecting his attention to their table at large. “So it’s filming next Saturday, you guys are free then, right?”

After they all tell him yes Stiles bobs his head, pleased.

“Great,” he says, eyes lingering on Derek.

*

The club they’re filming in is nice, Derek supposes. Then again, all clubs look the same to him. He’s not looking forward to not having alcohol to numb the sound of music so loud it makes the floor’s vibrate.

He doesn’t pay much attention to the director explaining how filming’s gonna work, he mostly watches Stiles and the way the deep ‘v’ of his t-shirt gets even deeper every time he moves or the way his black skinny jeans look like they’ve been painted on. Today’s going to be a real test of Derek’s control, if nothing else.

The next thing he knows the director’s telling them to spread out and  _have fun!_  and Stiles is grabbing his hand to pull him into the thick of the crowd. He’s lost sight of Laura and Cora but that’s probably a good thing – the last thing he needs is those two embarrassing him in front of Stiles.

“Don’t be so nervous,” Stiles murmurs, smiling faintly as his hands travel to Derek’s hips and the music picks up.

“I told you I’m not a good dancer,” Derek replies awkwardly, trying to let his hips move where Stiles is guiding them.

Stiles rolls his eyes fondly, shaking his head before moving his own hips in time with beat while still trying to sway Derek.

“See, there you go!” Stiles encourages a few moments later when Derek’s actually moving like a semi-normal person. “Now, put your hands on my hips.”

Derek swallows hard before tentatively reaching out and fitting his hands on Stiles’ waist. Stiles smiles widely, nodding supportively and Derek feels a tiny bit braver.

As the song progresses and fades into another one he starts to loosen up a bit. Stiles must notice because he grins, taking one of his hands off Derek’s hip and slinging it around his neck to reel him in closer.

Derek feels like he’s barely breathing as he lets one of his hands slide around Stiles’ back and their foreheads press together.

“For someone who can’t dance you’re doing a pretty good job,” Stiles mumbles in his ear, barely audible above the music but it still makes Derek shiver.

Derek’s about to say something back,  _anything,_  when the song stops abruptly and the director yells cut. He just about resists grinding his teeth together in frustration as Stiles lets go of him with an easy smile and heads over to the crowd gathered around the director. Derek sulkily follows.

“You,” the director says, pointing at Stiles. “You go with this guy,” he says gesturing to some tall Abercrombie model that Derek instantly hates.

Stiles’ face goes blank with surprise. “Um I actually already have a dance partner-“

“We’re mixing it up,” the director says blithely, shooing him over to the other guy impatiently. Stiles turns to give Derek a helpless smile before wandering away.

Derek ends up paired with some girl – she’s pretty, he guesses, but he’s not really interested.

After dancing with her for twenty minutes he makes the excuse that he has to go to the bathroom so he can get away. She doesn’t look too perturbed, she starts dancing with another couple pretty much straight away. Once inside the bathroom he throws some cold water over his face, trying to tell himself that it’s not so bad. He got to dance with Stiles for a while at least. And maybe they can dance again later. Just as he’s about to head back out Abercrombie dude steps out of one of the stalls.

He offers Derek a “hey,” when he’s at the sink and Derek thinks  _this is his chance_. He just has to ask the guy to swap partners with him.

“Hey. So, you’re dancing with Stiles, right?”

“You mean the hot model?” the guy asks conversationally, a leering grin slipping onto his face that Derek doesn’t like at all. “Oh yeah.”

Derek shoves down his anger and gives the guy a brittle smile. “So listen, me and him kind of came here together and-“

“Are you guys _together_ , together?” the guy cuts in.

Derek frowns, “No, we’re roommates. But-“

“Sorry bro, he’s mine tonight,” the guy shrugs unapologetically, about to make his way to the door when Derek steps in front of him.

“I’m pretty sure he’s not anyone’s unless he wants to be,” Derek warns, just about clinging on to the casual tone.

“Then why are you in here asking  _my_  permission?” the guy asks, folding his arms with a smug smirk.

That’s not what Derek’s doing, if anything he was trying to give the guy a head’s up because he’s pretty sure Stiles wants to dance with him too. Then again, why is he even wasting his breath on this asshole when he could be out there with Stiles?

“You’re right,” he sneers. “I shouldn’t be asking your permission.”

What he does next, he’s not proud of it. And he’ll go to his grave swearing he didn’t do it but he twists on the tap, flicks water onto the crotch of the guy’s khakis and  _bolts_.

He could’ve hit him – he would’ve  _enjoyed_  hitting him – but then he’d get in trouble and Stiles’d probably get in trouble too for bringing him. So incapacitating Abercrombie dude through embarrassment it is!

*

Derek finds Stiles in the middle of crowd, looking kind of lost without anyone to dance with. He brightens when he sees Derek though. “Hey! Have you seen-“

“Yeah, he had to go,” Derek replies nonchalantly. “There was some emergency or something so I guess I can dance with you again,” he adds sheepishly. “If you want?”

Stiles’ lips curve up in a smile and he nods. “I’d like that.”

They make it through one song, hips slotted together and t-shirts fisted in each other’s hands when the director yells cut. Derek literally can’t catch a break.

That is, until the director announces they’re doing the countdown. Derek’s heartbeat picks up and he thinks his palms are sweating where they’re latched onto Stiles’ sides.

Stiles turns to him, grinning nervously and settling his hands on Derek’s shoulders as people around them begin to count. Derek wracks his brain, trying to figure out if he should lean in or not.

When there’s four seconds left he decides he’ll kiss Stiles. If he kisses back, great! If not, he can just play it off like it was for the cameras.

“ _Three!”_  everyone yells and Derek takes a miniscule step closer so they’re chest to chest.

_“Two!”_  and Stiles’ breath hitches as his fingers curl into Derek’s t-shirt.

_“One!”_  and Derek’s about to surge forward but then-

“Cut!”

Derek freezes and so does Stiles, the two of them staring at each other in disbelief barely an inch from each other’s faces as the director says good work, they’re done for the day.

He can’t believe this. He was so close,  _so close_ , and Stiles was gonna kiss him back, Derek could tell.

Instead Stiles just gives him a “what can you do?” kind of smile and Derek mutters that they should go find Laura and Cora.

*

It takes about ten years to get Cora and Laura out of their apartment since they won’t shut up about their stupid routine but when they’re finally alone again Derek finds Stiles standing in the middle of the room, looking at him with an unreadable expression.

“I think I’m gonna go to bed,” Derek mumbles to distract himself from the way his stomach is doing flips. He brushes past Stiles and Stiles catches his arm, stopping him.

“Derek,” he says hesitantly. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Derek lets out an inaudible sigh and turns so they’re face to face.

Stiles blows out a breath and meets his gaze with trepidation. “I was really disappointed when I didn’t get to kiss you today,” he admits quietly.

Derek feels the ground drop out from underneath him. Stiles wanted to kiss him. Stiles is disappointed he didn’t  _get_  to kiss him. Derek needs to remember how to breathe.

“Me too,” he stutters out after what feels like far too long.

Stiles smiles, shoulders sagging in relief as his fingers tangle with Derek’s. Gently, he tugs Derek into his space and he starts counting.

“Five…four…three…two…one…” Slowly, he leans forward and slots their lips together. It’s gentle and chaste and barely more than a brush but Derek’s tingling all over by the time Stiles pulls back and smiles softly.

“Happy New Year.”

 


	26. The One With Ross' Sandwich

Stiles thought taking a literature class would be a nice way to get back into reading. It’d give him focus and set him goals which meant he might actually get the book finished instead of getting distracted two chapters in.

It’s a nice class, small enough that it’s easy for the teacher to keep their attention but not so small that it feels awkward. Everyone’s pretty relaxed too, there’s a nice balance between those taking the class simply for enjoyment and those actually trying to learn.

Until the new guy joins.

He comes with Allison; the pretty brunette who discussed thematic concepts of Harry Potter with Stiles for almost an hour last week after class. New guy is sinfully attractive with perfectly sculpted scruff, wearing an adorable, soft-looking sweater and glasses that keeps sliding down his nose.

That in and of itself is enough to get Stiles’ attention but then-

The guy starts _arguing_ with their teacher. Like full-on debating with him and going on a big long rant how James’ – their teacher – characterisation of Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship is completely wrong.

Most of the class is sitting in stunned silence. No one ever argues with James. People usually just spout the odd opinion here and there to chorus of non-committal hums of agreement while James leads the discussion. Allison looks like she’s trying to surreptitiously kick new guy’s chair to tell him to shut up but Stiles- Stiles is having the time of his life.

_Finally_ someone is making this place interesting.

James eventually cuts the class short when Derek pauses to take a breath and people need no prompting before shooting out their seats and disappearing from the classroom.

Stiles shoves his book, pen and notepad in his bag and heads for where Allison looks like she’s whisper yelling at her friend – who’s just looking at her with derision, crossing his arms with a huff.

“He-eeyy Allison,” Stiles interrupts, smiling uneasily when both their gazes snap to him. Wow, okay. That’s intimidating.

Allison’s expression softens though and she smiles at him. “Hey Stiles,” she sighs. “Enjoy the class?”

“You could say that,” Stiles allows. He doesn’t mean to but his eyes slide to her friend after he answers. Allison, with her goddamn critical, shrewd eye, notices. Obviously.

She must take his glance the wrong way though because she huffs and looks at new guy with a look that basically says, “I told you so.” “Stiles, this is my friend Derek,” she introduces.

Stiles immediately sticks out a hand and Derek shakes it cautiously. “Hey man, I’m Stiles,” he greets cheerfully.

“Nice to meet you,” Derek replies quietly, seeming far more reserved than he was in class.

“So I guess you can’t come for coffee this week?” Stiles asks Allison, silently praying that she can and that she’s gonna bring Derek along.

Allison hesitates for a moment, looking between him and Derek.

“I can meet you at home,” Derek tells her gruffly. “I didn’t realise you had a date.”

Stiles barks out a laugh before Allison can say anything. “Dude, it’s not a date,” he chuckles. “Allison and I just get coffee after class sometimes. You’re welcome to join us?” Hell yeah, Stiles can be smooth.

Allison startles, staring at Stiles in astonishment like she can’t believe he’d willingly want to spend time with Derek after that. Still she turns to Derek with an encouraging smile. “What d’you say, Der?”

Now Derek’s the one hesitating, looking at Stiles with a penetrating gaze that makes him a feel a little light-headed. Eventually Derek nods and says, “Okay.”

*

When they get to the coffee shop Stiles subtly slides into the seat across from Derek, ignoring the contemplative look Allison gives him. “So Derek,” he bulldozes on. “How do you and Allison know each other?”

“We’re roommates,” he mutters, looking steadfastly down at his coffee as soon as the waitress brings it over.

“I work with his best friend, Boyd,” Allison elaborates. “He put me in contact with Derek when I was looking for a new roommate.”

“Cool.” Stiles bobs his head and takes a gulp of his coffee. He really can’t deal with awkward silences. “So what made you decide to come to the literature class?” he asks a few minutes later because he wants Derek to at least look at him.

It works. Derek looks up, casts a glance to Allison who just smirks and then looks back at Stiles. “Uh I took a minor in English lit. in college,” he explains. “Allison kept going on about the class so I thought I’d give it a try.”

“A minor in English lit.?” Stiles whistles lowly. “Well that explains why you were able to challenge James.”

Derek actually _blushes_ and oh god, Stiles is melting. This is too much.

“Derek is just really passionate about the things he’s interested in,” Allison cuts in. It’s cute how she’s totally annoyed at him for embarrassing her but also defending him like a mama bear.

“Hey, I say there’s nothin’ wrong with a little bit of passion,” Stiles insists, winking at Derek and making him blush _even more_. His ears are pink. Incredible.

Allison raises her eyebrows at him before realisation dawns on her face and she catches on. Her grin is positively gleeful as she excuses herself from the table to go order another a cup of coffee. She’s a blessing, Stiles is gonna have to set her up with Scott or something as a thank you.

*

The next class Allison isn’t there but Derek is.

He tries to convince James to give them a pop quiz. Stiles is cackling on the inside if only because of the look of pure betrayal the entire class shoots Derek when he pipes up.

They don’t have a pop quiz - thank god because Stiles totally didn’t read all the chapters assigned for this week’s class – but Derek looks like he’s going to pursue it when the class is over, eyeing James as if he’s about to pounce.

So Stiles meanders over to him – for James’ sake obviously. “Hey, you’re back!”

Derek’s gaze slips to him like he’s trying to figure out if Stiles means that in a good way or bad way but eventually smiles faintly. “Couldn’t stay away.”

And wow if Stiles didn’t know any better he’d think that sounded a little flirty?

“So I know Allison’s not here, but the offer for coffee still stands this week,” Stiles says casually, trying desperately to keep the hopefulness out of his voice. He’s not sure if he succeeds.

Derek’s expression changes as he gives Stiles a long, appraising look and Stiles has no idea what it means but suddenly Derek’s telling him to lead the way so he’s guessing it means something good.

*

The coffee shop is quiet so Stiles makes a beeline for the arm chairs tucked away in the corner. If they’re more secluded from the shop at large well, he just wants to make sure he can hear Derek over the noise.

“You don’t get annoyed at me in class,” Derek says a few minutes after their coffee arrives. It’s not a question but Stiles hears the hidden _why_ underneath it.

“Naw dude, do you know how boring that class can get? You liven the place up.”

“So you think it’s funny,” Derek mutters, looking some mixture of hurt and resigned that tugs at Stiles’ chest.

“I think everyone else’s reactions are funny,” Stiles says slowly. “But I also like listening to you talk.”

Derek looks up from the sugar packets on the table he’d been arranging.

“It’s pretty fucking cool to watch people talk about the things they love, in my opinion,” he continues softly. “Plus it’s not like you’re bullshitting. Everything you’re saying sounds pretty legit to me.”

Derek looks so surprised Stiles just wants to pet his hair and maybe kiss his face for an hour – or six. “I- most people just tell me to shut up,” he mumbles, ducking his head in embarrassment.

Stiles frowns before digging into his bag for a pen then reaching across the table for one of the sugar packets Derek was messing with.

“What are you doing?” he asks curiously.

“The next time someone does that,” Stiles says, sliding the sugar packet newly adorned with his phone number across the table. “Call me instead.”


	27. The One Where No One's Ready

“Jackson!” Lydia says impatiently, shoving two different shoes in his face. “Which. One.”

Jackson huffs and goes to follow her into her bedroom, whirling around last minute and pointing a finger in the direction of Derek and Stiles. “When I come back out you two better be dressed,” he warns.

“Aye Aye, Captain!” Stiles exclaims, not taking his eyes off the TV. Derek doesn’t even bother answering.

Jackson glares at them, rushing into Lydia’s room when she yells his name again.

“Man, do we have to go to this stupid dinner thing?” Stiles complains. “I mean, it’s _Jackson_.”

“It’s a big deal for him,” Derek says absently, like Lydia’s been drilling into all their heads for the past week.

“It’s Jackson,” Stiles repeats, deadpan, giving him an unimpressed look.

Derek looks away from the TV and huffs a laugh at him. “Fine, we’re going because Lydia would skin us alive otherwise.”

Stiles sighs long-sufferingly, settling down in his chair just as Allison and Scott walk through the door. “You. Look. Amazing,” he calls.

“Thanks,” Allison smiles sweetly, blush colouring her cheeks.

“Oh. Wow. This is awkward. I meant Scott,” Stiles teases.

Allison and Scott roll their eyes in synch – it’s just as creepy as it sounds – and take a seat next to Derek on the couch.

“Ignore him,” Derek scoffs. “You look gorgeous, Allison.”

“And both of you look not even the slightest bit ready,” Scott intones, raising his eyebrows.

“Whatever, I can be ready in like five minutes,” Stiles huffs.

Jackson and Lydia march out of Lydia’s room thirty seconds later. “Allison,” he sighs in relief. “Thank god. Someone I can actually be seen with in public.” He looks over at Scott then, eyeing him up and down. “McCall… You’ll do.”

Scott snorts, smiling giddily when Allison tells him he looks very handsome, ruffling his hair.

“Allison, help me,” Lydia pleads, glaring at the back of Jackson’s head.

Allison raises her eyebrows but gets up off the couch and follows Lydia into her room.

“Stilinski, I swear to god if you don’t get dressed-“

“Yeah, yeah.” Stiles waves a hand dismissively, heaving himself up off the chair. “Lemme just get a drink first.”

When he comes back from the kitchen Derek’s sitting in his chair. “Dude.”

Derek looks up confusedly. “What?”

“You’re in my chair.”

“But you got up?”

“But I was coming back,” Stiles insists.

“I thought you were getting dressed-“

“He is,” Jackson cuts in. He looks a little unhinged. “Stilinski, get dressed. Hale will go get dressed when you come back and then you can have the fucking chair.”

Stiles scowls at him but sets his drink down on the coffee table. “Fine.” He stalks off across the hall, into his own apartment and starts slipping on his tux. He was right, it only takes him like five minutes. Jackson is stressing over nothing.

He’s about to head back across the hall when he notices Derek’s tux hanging in his doorway. What if he just…

*

When he gets back into the other apartment Derek’s still in his seat. “Okay I did my part. Up!” he demands.

Derek drags his eyes away from the TV - to snark at Stiles, no doubt - when he freezes, eyes widening as his gaze travels the length of Stiles’ body which- okay, Stiles is pretty pleased with that reaction.

“In a minute,” Derek huffs about thirty seconds too late.

“Oh really?” Stiles challenges.

Derek nods like he’s daring him to try something so Stiles shrugs and hops into Derek’s lap. It’s just to piss him off – he swears.

Derek makes a noise that almost sounds like a squawk. “Stiles! Get off!” Derek shoves at him, though not very hard since Stiles doesn’t budge.

“Nah I like this seat better,” Stiles replies airily, wiggling around a bit to get comfortable – which maybe he shouldn’t do while he’s essentially sitting on Derek’s crotch.

“Stiles,” Derek growls. “Move!”

Stiles grabs onto to Derek’s shoulder to keep himself from falling off and it brings him just a little bit too close to Derek’s face. He’s convinced it’s overexposure to Derek’s stupidly beautiful eyes that leads him to say, “Make me.”

Derek freezes and oh wow, Stiles can actually see his pupils dilating as his eyes flick to Stiles’ lips. That’s- oh god.

“Welp I’m gonna go…look at the stars,” Scott trails off, bolting for the balcony. Stiles barely notices.

Jackson huffs and tells them he’s going to get the taxi and that they both better have gotten over their sexual tension when he comes back. Lydia and Allison are still in Lydia’s room.

“So,” Stiles says slowly, eyes flitting over Derek’s face and smirking mischievously. “Are you gonna make me?”

There’s a split second of still and then Derek’s surging up and crushing their lips together. The hand he has on Derek’s shoulder tightens and his other immediately flies up to tangle in Derek’s hair.

Derek’s hands travel up underneath his suit jacket, clawing at his shirt as he nips at Stiles’ bottom lip.

Stiles pulls back for half a second to heave in a lungful of air when the burn in his lungs becomes too much and then dives back in, sighing into Derek’s mouth and falling against him.

He feels a little light-headed honestly, and he’s pretty sure his knees would’ve gone weak by now if he was standing. He’s getting dangerously close to switching positions and straddling Derek’s hips to get better access when Scott very loudly comes back into the room.

“Okay I gave you sixty seconds. Derek can you please stop mauling my best friend and get dressed?” he begs. “You can have sex later. When I’m very, _very_ far away. Also congratulations.”

Stiles pulls away reluctantly and Derek huffs, irritated.

“You should get dressed,” Stiles mumbles, laughing slightly hysterically because holy shit he just kissed _Derek_.

“You’re gonna hafta get off me for that to happen,” Derek smirks.

Stiles leans in to kiss the stupid smirk off his face when suddenly someone’s grabbing him by the back of his collar and dragging him off Derek.

“You’ll thank me when Jackson doesn’t cut off your balls,” Scott says, sounding like a long-suffering parent as he drags Stiles onto the couch.

Stiles shoots him an affronted look as Derek gets up, chuckling to himself as he passes Jackson, who’s storming back in, on his way out

Allison comes out of Lydia’s room a moment later and announces that Lydia’s just organising her clutch and then they can go.

“Fucking finally,” Jackson huffs.

Lydia comes gliding out of her room a moment later in a stunning green dress, smirking haughtily when Jackson’s jaw drops.

“Happy?” she asks, raising an imperious eyebrows.

Jackson swallows hard and nods, holding out his arm for her to link her own through.

Allison rolls her eyes exasperatedly at the two of them, grinning at Scott when he hops up off the couch to take her hand.

Derek comes back into the apartment thirty seconds before Jackson starts shuffling them all out the front door.

Stiles whistles lowly, standing up. “You clean up good, Hale.”

“Oh really?”

Stiles nods, sauntering up to him and straightening his lapels with a sly grin. He’s about to walk out the door when Derek grabs his arm and pulls him back.

“What d’you do with it?” he asks quietly.

“Whatever do you mean?” Stiles asks innocently.

“Where’d you hide my underwear?” Derek grits out.

“Why didn’t you wear the underwear you were already wearing?” Stiles already knows the answer but seeing Derek’s ears turn pink is too delightful an opportunity to pass up.

“You know I wasn’t wearing underwear earlier,” Derek mutters.

Stiles just about manages to rein in his gleeful grin, leaning in close and brushing his lips against the shell of Derek’s ear. “I guess that’s just one less thing to take off later then.”

             


	28. The One With The Thumb

“Guys.” Stiles is practically vibrating with anticipation and nerves. Derek can feel it rolling off him in waves. “I want you to meet Brian.”

_Brian_ is some guy Stiles met at the grocery store – the fucking _grocery store_. They’d bumped into each other with their shopping carts. How cute.

Everyone immediately descends on Brian, offering hands to shake and welcoming smiles. Derek hangs back, gives him a nod and a grumbled out, “Nice to meet you,” when Stiles glares pointedly at him.

Eventually everyone calms down enough that they can go back to taking up space on the couch and finishing their take-out – or Derek finishes take-out while everyone else chats with Brian.

Scott gets the ball rolling with, “How did you two meet?”

A question Derek already knows the answer to because he was with Stiles right after it happened. Stiles had been at the grocery store getting ice-cream for _Derek_ when they met. Derek had been looking forward to spending the evening alone with Stiles, ostensibly researching but actually just demolishing a tub of ice-cream and talking.

If he’d have known talking would’ve meant Stiles waxing poetic about the hipster dude he met at the supermarket he would’ve passed.

Tonight he just tunes them out as Brian talks all about himself and how great Stiles is and how great they are together and Derek is going to stab himself in the eye with his chop sticks if the guy doesn’t cut it out soon.

Watching everyone fawn over Brian is making him want to flash his eyes and growl until the guy runs for the hills. But that’s not fair to Stiles. He actually likes this Brian. The scent of happiness has permeated the air around him ever since they met.

So Derek plasters on a smile – that probably looks more like a sneer – whenever someone draws him into the conversation.

He can feel Stiles’ curious gaze on him all night but he refuses to acknowledge it. He won’t mess this up for Stiles but he’s also not gonna pretend to worship the ground Stiles’ new boyfriend walks on.

When Brian leaves the pack immediately starts talking over each other, telling Stiles how amazing Brian is and how they can’t believe Stiles didn’t introduce him sooner and organising a million and one activities the group can do with Brian.

Stiles takes it all in his stride but Derek’s senses flood with relief the more the pack reassures Stiles. It’s almost enough to make him feel guilty for not putting an effort tonight.

While the others are caught up in their discussion of inviting Brian to the next pack movie night Stiles saunters over to Derek, dropping down on the empty space beside him.

“You’ve been awfully quiet tonight,” Stiles says conversationally.

Derek makes a non-committal grunt, messing with the label on his beer bottle like it’s extremely interesting.

“I mean, not that you’re not always quiet,” Stiles adds, still in that forced casual tone. He’s nervous. He wants Derek’s approval.

“You know I find change hard,” Derek says because it’s the closest thing to the truth that doesn’t implicate him.

“I know,” Stiles says, surprisingly gentle. “But do you like Brian? I mean, does he seem…y’know- okay?”

“He seems nice,” Derek answers half-heartedly but he knows that won’t do. So he looks Stiles dead on and with as much earnestness as he can muster, he says, “I’m really happy for you. Don’t let the fact that I have trust issues spoil your night.”

Stiles expression softens , his hand settling on top of Derek’s like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “I’m not gonna tell him about the pack, Derek,” he says sincerely. “Not until I’m absolutely sure. It’s still early days yet. And you know I’d never introduce anyone to you guys who I thought would hurt you.”

“I know,” Derek replies even though he feels like his throat is about to close up. Stiles would never intentionally hurt Derek. They don’t play that game anymore – haven’t for a long time – doesn’t mean Derek’s not feeling irrationally hurt anyway.

Stiles gives him a small smile, squeezes his hand briefly and then looks away to answer Scott’s one million and one questions.

*

Brian is everywhere. All the time. And it’s the entire pack’s fault.

Sometimes Brian’s there even when Stiles isn’t! He goes shopping with Lydia and goes to the shooting range with Allison and plays lacrosse with Scott, Isaac, Jackson and Boyd and they’re all thoroughly enamoured with him.

Derek _hates_ the guy.

Which is maybe an unfair opinion to have since Brian’s never done anything to personally _offend_ Derek – except date the person Derek’s been trying to work up the nerve to tell his feelings to for about two years now – but _he’s too perfect_.

And Derek knows from experience: perfect people are almost always decidedly _not_ perfect once you go underneath the surface.

He doesn’t say anything about it though because this is Stiles’ first relationship that hasn’t been with someone involved in their whole supernatural shitstorm and Derek really doesn’t want to ruin it.

He’s still allowed to imagine breaking Brian’s stupid glasses in half in the comfort of his own mind.

*

Derek would let the Brian thing go – he swears he would – except Stiles seems…off.

The pack doesn’t really notice because on the surface it seems like nothing’s wrong and their new favourite person is always around as a distraction. But whenever one of them suggests Stiles call Brian and ask him to come over Stiles makes this face.

It only last half a second and Derek suspects the only people beside him that even remotely notice are probably Scott and Lydia but it’s there.

His scent’s different too; before he radiated happiness whenever Brian was around or was mentioned now he’s just kind of…apathetic. Derek suspects no one else really notices because of the scent of the pack’s happiness smothering the room at large.

“Can I talk you for a minute?” Stiles asks him one day – one of the first times they’ve been alone together in weeks.

“Sure,” Derek replies, saving the word doc on his laptop and pushing it aside – he was helping Stiles organise the bestiary while Lydia was busy translating some ancient book on banshees. “What’s up?”

“Do you like Brian?” Stiles asks hesitantly.

Derek pauses, reminding himself that Stiles won’t be able to know if he lies but still feeling bad about being dishonest. “He’s okay,” he says slowly. “Why?”

“It’s just- I’m not really sure he’s the one y’know?”

“You mean you want to break up with him?” Derek asks, trying to clarify and trying desperately not to get his hopes up.

“Yeah,” Stiles sighs. “But everyone loves him so much. They’re gonna be heartbroken if I break up with him.”

Derek huffs a laugh. “Stiles, it’s your relationship, not theirs. And more than anything they want you to be happy. If you wanna break up with Brian they won’t begrudge you.”

“They might!” Stiles protests. “Erica’s already told me she wants to platonically marry him.”

“So let Erica platonically marry him,” Derek snorts. “As long as you don’t have to.”

Stiles narrows his eyes, giving him a speculative look. “You really don’t like him, do you?”

“I never said that,” Derek denies quickly. “I’m just not obsessed with him like everyone else is.”

Stiles laughs ruefully, shaking his head. “I’m half-convinced he’s a sorcerer or something that’s got ‘em all under a love spell.”

Derek scoffs. “Pretty bad sorcerer if he can’t even keep his boyfriend’s attention with his love potion.”

“True,” Stiles grins.

“Thanks,” he adds a few minutes later. “It’s nice to have an unbiased opinion.”

Unbiased. Sure.

*

Stiles breaks up with Brian four days later.

Derek finds out when he sits the pack down and gently explains to them that he and Brian are no longer seeing each other.

“Is it something we did?” Scott asks worriedly.

Stiles hesitates which is weird. “Not at all, buddy,” he says soothingly. “We just weren’t right for each other.”

“He’s still gonna come visit though, right?” Erica asks, biting her lip anxiously.

“I don’t think so,” Stiles replies regretfully.

Jackson punches a cushion and storms into the bathroom, looking a little misty-eyed. Derek refuses to laugh.

It isn’t until later in the night when the pack has dwindled down to just the two of them that Stiles tells him the truth.

“Can you keep a secret?” he whispers, sitting cross-legged in front of Derek on Derek’s bed – he just happens to keep his laptop with the bestiary files in his room, okay?

“Depends on if it’s a secret worth keeping,” Derek replies offhandedly.

Stiles rolls his eyes but tells him anyway. “Brian said he hated my friends.”

And that’s- what.

“ _What?”_

“Yeah! He said that he was disappointed we were breaking up because he liked me but he was kinda relieved because he couldn’t stand the pack.”

Derek is kind of speechless honestly. How the hell could that guy spend so much time with all of them, wrap all of them around his finger and then turn around and not even like them?

“Asshole,” he mutters loyally.

“Hah!” Stiles crows. “I _knew_ you didn’t like him!”

Oh shit. “That wasn’t- I wasn’t-“

“It’s okay, Derek,” Stiles laughs. “I broke up with him, remember?”

Derek watches the way Stiles smiles, the way he doesn’t even seem the tiniest bit upset about breaking up with Brian and thinks, fuck it. “The reason I didn’t like him didn’t have a lot to do with his personality.

Stiles raises an eyebrow, lips still curved up in a smirk. “Oh no?”

Derek shakes his head, tugging on the comforter he and Stiles are sitting on. “I hated him because he was able to do the thing I’ve been trying to convince myself to do for years.”

Stiles looks confused, brows knitting together. “I don’t get it.”

Derek takes a deep breath, steeling himself and looks up from the blanket to meet Stiles’ eyes. “I like you. As in the “I wanna take you on dates and fall asleep on you and listen to all your ridiculous theories” kind of like you.”

Stiles stares at him in disbelief, mouth opening and closing a few times like he’s about to say something but keeps cutting himself off.

Derek is just about ready to take it back and pretend he was kidding when Stiles leans forwards, brushing their lips together lightly. It’s chaste and short and sweet but Derek still feels like he’s been electrified when their lips touch.

Stiles pulls back with a dazed expression, eyes lighting up and smile soft around the edges. “Took you years to figure out how to say that?” he asks quietly.

Derek nods wordlessly, watching in amazement as Stiles’ smile gets wider.

“Will you be mad if it only takes me ten seconds to figure out how to tell you I like you too?” he asks playfully. “As in the “argue with you over the check on these dates we’re gonna go on, play with your hair while you sleep on me, remind you pointedly that my theories are _not_ ridiculous” kind of like you.”

Derek knocks him backwards on the bed, diving forward to kiss him. He thinks it’s a pretty good answer.


	29. The One With The Stain

“Dude, hiring a cleaner is the best idea you’ve ever had,” Stiles says appreciatively, trying not to stare at Derek’s arms as he reaches up to take stuff down off their shelves.

“Mom thinks telling us she’s visiting with John twenty-four hours before she arrives means she’s gonna find the place in its natural state,” Scott snorts. “She should know better than that by now.”

Stiles hums in agreement. He doesn’t really care if his dad and Melissa think the place is messy to be honest, just as long as their new cleaner, Derek, never has to leave Stiles’ll be happy.

Erica had recommended him, he was a friend of her boyfriend’s apparently, said he did super thorough work. When Stiles opened the door he thought she’d sent him the name of a stripper instead.

But no, it just turned out Derek-the-cleaner was simply sinfully attractive and a little scowly. Just how Stiles likes ‘em.

It’s going well. He’s surreptitiously managing to ogle Derek every now and again but not openly gaping because he has _some_ self-control. Scott doesn’t really notice – or if he does, he doesn’t care – and they try their best to stay mostly out of Derek’s way, letting him do his thing.

Around lunch time Scott announces that he’s gonna go grab them all some sandwiches from the Subway across the street and Stiles is left to admire Derek in peace.

“So how long have you been doing this?” Stiles asks interestedly as Derek starts dusting the bottom row of shelves in their little sectioned off kitchen area.

“I’m just doing it while I’m in college,” Derek calls over his shoulder. “You’d be surprised how much money college kids will shell out for someone else to clean their rooms when they need to keep up appearances.”

Stiles wrinkles his nose – his and Scott’s place isn’t  _that_ bad but he’s seen the state of some of the frat houses on campus. “Sounds like a messy job.”

“I’ve got a strong stomach,” Derek shrugs and Stiles is seriously trying to restrain himself from salivating over Derek’s back muscles.

Stiles realises too late he’s failed to avert his eyes because suddenly Derek’s turning around and Stiles’ gaze is being met with a raised eyebrow and the faintest hint of a smirk.

Stiles clears his throat awkwardly, fishing his phone out of his pocket and pretending to be absorbed in something super interesting.

“I’m gonna go get your load of laundry from the dryer,” Derek says amusedly, heading out the front door.

“Okay I’ll see you- later…” Stiles calls a second too late. He really thought college was _helping_ him learn to talk to hot people.

With a sigh, Stiles lets his eyes travel around the room, taking stock of the work Derek’s done so far. The living room’s basically spotless and Scott and Stiles’ rooms have already been cleaned – Stiles is pointedly not thinking about the potential horrors Derek could’ve found in his room. All that’s left is the bathroom and kitchen, which is already mostly done.

Stiles had no idea he had a thing for competency and efficiency but whaddaya know? Apparently he does!

Derek comes back a few minutes later with a laundry basket full of clothes that Stiles offers to fold because he’s not totally useless.

“You do realise you’re paying me for this?” Derek asks wryly.

“Doesn’t mean I’m gonna subject you to touching mine and Scott’s underwear,” Stiles shrugs, lips quirking when he notices Derek’s ears turn pink.

“I’m just gonna- finish the kitchen,” Derek says awkwardly – god what a dork, Stiles is in love – and leaves Stiles on the couch with the pile of laundry.

Scott finally comes back with their food when Stiles is halfway through the basket and insists Derek take a break to eat with them.

Derek takes the arm chair, eating his sandwich carefully to avoid any crumbs spilling – it’s the most endearing thing Stiles has ever witnessed – and mostly keeps quiet unless Scott asks him a question, his gaze flitting to Stiles periodically and making him feel like he’s gonna explode.

It’s when Derek’s getting up to go back to the kitchen that Stiles notices his jeans look an awful lot like Stiles’ favourite pair.

He puts it off as a coincidence at first; plenty of people must own those jeans and he knows for a fact there’s stain on the crotch of his own pair – he still hasn’t figured out how to eat tacos without most of it ending up in his lap, okay it’s not possible.

He casually sifts through the laundry while Scott starts working on a paper on his laptop and Derek finishes the bottom shelves but his jeans aren’t there.

Stiles quietly slips into his room then, searching through his drawers and his closet for his jeans but he can’t find them anywhere.

Is it possible Derek…stoles his jeans?

He’s had ample opportunity honestly – he was alone in Stiles’ room all morning _and_ he had access to their laundry pile. But would he really steal them and then wear them right in front of Stiles? That doesn’t seem very stealthy.

Stiles resolves to figure it out. If there’s a stain on the crotch then they’re his and he’ll have to fire their super-hot cleaner and if they’re not well, he’ll just go back to admiring from afar.

When he comes back out to the living area Scott’s disappeared into his own room and Derek’s still in the kitchen. He needs to think this through. He can’t just _ask_ Derek to show him his crotch that’s…misleading.

No, he has to do this sneakily.

“Hey Derek,” he says. “Could you do the top shelves as well? I think it’s pretty dusty up there.”

“Sure,” Derek nods, pulling out one of the chairs from the table and dragging it over to the counter to stand on it.

Stiles slowly makes his way over, coming to stand beside him so he’s eye level with Derek’s hip. He tries to lean forward and take a peak but the angle is all wrong. Not really noticing how close he’s coming to shoving his face into the front of Derek’s jeans, he slowly inches his face into the gap between Derek’s crotch and the shelves…until Derek freezes and blinks down at him owlishly.

“Uh what are you doing?” Derek asks warily.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles croaks, too terrified to move. “I’ve never had a cleaner before, is this not okay?”

Derek’s eyebrows rise so high they almost touch his hairline and Stiles takes that as his cue to move very, very far away. He backs up, standing on the opposite side of the kitchen table and clutching the back of one of the chairs as Derek hops down from the chair he’d been standing on.

“Wanna try a better explanation?” Derek asks, weirdly calm.

“Did you steal my jeans?” Stiles demands with a huff, throwing his hands up in the air in defeat.

Derek frowns, folding his arms across his chest. “What?”

“My jeans,” Stiles repeats. “They’re missing and they look suspiciously similar to yours so-“

“You think I stoles your jeans and then changed into them halfway through cleaning your apartment?” Derek asks incredulously and when you say it like that it sounds stupid but it made sense at the time!

“Stiles, why were you yelling?” Scott asks confusedly, emerging from his room.

“He thinks I stole his jeans,” Derek cuts in before he can even open his mouth.

Scott opens his mouth like he’s going to reply before his eyebrows knit together. “What jeans?”

Stiles turns to him, wincing. “Y’know the blue ones? My favourite ones?”

“You mean the ones I’m wearing?” Scott asks, looking down at himself. And- oh for fuck’s sake.

Stiles hears a scoff from behind him and cringes. “ _You’re_ wearing them?”

“Yeah I thought you wouldn’t mind since there’s a stain on them and-“

Oh god this is literally the most embarrassing moment of his entire life.

Stiles slowly turns back to Derek, smiling uneasily. “I guess you accepting my apology is kind of out of the question?”

Derek raises his eyebrows again before huffing a laugh and looking down. “It’s surprisingly not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me on a job. It’s okay.”

Stiles’ lips begin to tug up in a smile – how is Derek even real? “Seriously? You’ve gotta tell me about that sometime.”

“Maybe I could tell you tonight?” Derek suggests sheepishly and _holy shit did he just ask Stiles out on a date?!_

Before he can say anything, there’s a ridiculously put-upon sigh from behind him and Scott’s complaining, “Oh my god, Stiles. Only _you_ could accuse someone of stealing your stuff and get a date out of it.” He hears Scott’s door close after that.

He doesn’t pay attention to it, grinning at Derek. “So about tonight…”


	30. The One With The Inappropriate Sister

Stiles didn’t really know what to expect when Derek introduced him to his sisters.

He’s pretty sure he wasn’t expecting this though.

Derek lives with his two sisters, Laura and Cora. There’s a striking family resemblance – in other words, they’re both just as flawless looking as Derek – and their matching grins set Stiles a little on edge but Derek’s hand is pressed firmly into the small of his back as he leads them into the living area so it makes him breathe slightly easier.

“It’s so nice to meet you!” Laura exclaims, jumping up from the couch and sweeping him up in an unexpected hug. Stiles side-eyes Derek and pats her back awkwardly until she lets go.

“You too,” he smiles and she beams happily.

Cora wanders over at a more sedate pace, offering her hand for Stiles to shake. As soon as he takes it she yanks him close, adopting a fierce look. “Hurt my brother and they’ll find you in pieces,” she warns.

“ _Cora,”_ Derek reprimands, face bright red as he pulls Stiles away from her. Stiles looks between them, shrinking against Derek’s chest as Derek stares her down. That girl is  _scary._

Cora eventually huffs and rolls her eyes. “I just wanted him to know he’s being watched.”

“Oh Cora’s just kidding!” Laura waves a hand breezily but Stiles doesn’t miss the tight smile she gives her sister.

Derek sighs and leads Stiles to the couch, pointedly sitting _between_  him and Cora as Laura sits on Stiles’ other side.

“So tell us about yourself!” Laura enthuses, waiting expectantly as Stiles turns to her.

“Um not much to say?” Stiles hedges, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably. He can still feel Cora glaring. “I’m a freelance writer so I tend to move from job to job a lot.”

Laura nods, encouraging him to keep going.

“I live with my buddy, Scott, two floors up,” he tacks on then. “Been living together since college.”

“Scott’s the floppy-haired guy with the uneven jaw, right?” Cora asks disinterestedly.

“Yep! That’s him,” Stiles confirms, laughing uneasily.

“So Stiles,” Cora asks, suddenly looking far more clued into the conversation as she leans forward and props her elbow up on her knee to rest her chin in her hand. “Ever committed a crime?” she asks casually.

“ _Cora_ ,” Derek hisses.

“Uh does underage drinking count?” Stiles answers anyway. He figures the only way to get her to lay off is to prove she doesn’t scare him.

Cora purses her lips but lets it go. “Ever been arrested?” she asks instead.

“My dad’s a sheriff,” Stiles sputters indignantly. “I’m pretty sure he’d kill me if I ever got myself arrested.”

“Fine,” she sighs. “What about relationships then? Ever cheated on someone? Manipulated them to get what you want?”

“Okay!” Derek interrupts hurriedly. “No more questioning Stiles’ character. If I say he’s good enough then he  _is_ ,” he declares, glaring at Cora. She holds her hands up in surrender and flops back against the cushions, immediately losing interest.

Stiles smiles at him, feeling a warmth spread through his chest.  _Derek thinks he’s good enough._

Laura taps him on the shoulder then and he turns back to her. “So how’s the relationship going? How many dates has it been now? Four? Five?”

“Six,” Stiles corrects. Well, six official dates and about a million and one lazy days on the couch and sleepovers.

“Have you, y’know, done the deed yet?” she asks, widening her eyes significantly. “Because Derek has some trust issues and really, if he wants to wait-“

“Alright, that’s it.” Derek stands up, pulling Stiles with him. “Laura, Cora, thank you for this delightful experience. I hope you know I’m disowning you both,” he tells them with a brittle smile. “We’re going into my room and if either of you try to come in I’m calling mom.”

“You’re gonna tell on us?” Cora scoffs.

“Oh I’m sorry, do you want mom to come up here and talk to you with her disappointed voice?”

Cora glares mutinously, crossing her arms over her chest.

“We won’t come in,” Laura assures.

Derek nods, satisfied, and tugs Stiles into his room. As he’s closing the door he hears Laura yell, “Be safe!” and maybe slams the door with a little more force than necessary.

*

“Uh wanna tell me what that was about?” Stiles asks.

Derek sighs, flopping down on the bed. He waits until Stiles lies down next to him and then rolls over, settling his head on Stiles’ chest and linking their fingers together. “I haven’t had the best relationship history,” he admits. “They’ve taken to trying to vet everyone I’ve dated since my first two relationships were such a disaster.”

Derek waits for Stiles to ask him about Kate or Jennifer but he doesn’t. Instead he starts carding his fingers through Derek’s hair. “At least you know they care,” he says softly. “Besides, let’s be real, Allison and Scott basically did the same thing when I introduced you to them.”

“Pretty sure they were nicer about it,” Derek mumbles.

Stiles snorts, “Dude, Allison said she’d unload an entire quiver of arrows in you if you hurt me and Scott voluntarily sexiled himself from the apartment after our first, second  _and_  third date.”

Derek grins, hiding it against the fabric of Stiles’ t-shirt. “So they didn’t scare you off?” he asks hopefully.

“Not even close,” Stiles says certainly. “I’m kind of planning on keeping you around.”

“Me too,” Derek replies, reaching up to kiss Stiles’ jaw before settling back down against his chest. Stiles pulls their joined hands up to his lips and kisses Derek’s knuckles, letting them drop again a second later.

Yeah, Derek thinks he’s gonna keep him around alright.

 


	31. The One With The Princess Leia Fantasy

Stiles hasn’t slept in days.

Approximately four days because that was the last time Derek slept in his bed. God, breakups fucking sucked. He’s a total mess – he started crying when he found little bits of Derek’s stubble stuck to the sink from when he’d shaved the other morning, he’d watched Derek’s stupid civil war DVDs for about ten hours yesterday and he showed up to work at the police station this morning still in his pyjamas and Derek’s hoodie.

That’s where his dad drew the line and promptly left his desk to take Stiles home.

When they enter the apartment his dad gazes over at him with a pitying expression after taking in the empty take-out cartons all over the place and his comforter strewn across the couch.

“Oh kid,” he sighs, wrapping his arm around Stiles’ shoulder and directing him to the couch. “C’mon, let’s have a talk.”

Stiles sits down wordlessly, curling his legs up underneath him. His dad waits patiently for him to start talking but in the end, all he can really say is, “I miss him, dad.”

“Well I think that much is clear,” the sheriff says, nodding to the mess of the apartment. “I take it you haven’t been sleeping either?”

Stiles shakes his head, scrubbing at his eyes, half in an attempt to wake himself up and half in an attempt to prevent himself from breaking down for the millionth time this week.

“Would it make you feel any better if I told you Derek wasn’t much better?” John huffs a few minutes later.

“He isn’t?” Stiles asks, voice small and hoarse from not talking.

The sheriff shakes his head. “Came to see me the other day,” he explains. “Says he went to me to stop himself from going to see you.”

Stiles’ throat feels tight and he swallows hard, forcing himself not to cry. “Is he okay?” he whispers, hating the way his voice cracks anyway.

“He’s a wreck,” his dad answers honestly. “Remind me why you broke up again.”

“He- we- I don’t even _know_ ,” he huffs, leaning back against the couch cushions and covering his face with his hands.

“Maybe you should figure that out,” his dad suggests gently, patting Stiles’ knee. “Now I’m gonna get back to work and if anyone asks, you’re taking a personal day.”

Stiles nods, smiles wanly up at the sheriff as he stands. “Thanks dad.”

“Anytime, kiddo.”

*

Around 2am there’s a knock at Stiles’ door. When Stiles opens it Derek’s standing there with sleep-mussed hair, rumpled clothes and bags under his eyes.

“I can’t sleep,” he says, a hint of pleading desperation slipping into his voice.

Stiles doesn’t say anything, just opens the door wider to let him through. After he closes the door he watches Derek for a second, the way he stands unsure in the centre of the room like he doesn’t think he belongs. Which is fucking stupid because if _anything_ belongs in this apartment it’s Derek.

“Come on,” Stiles says quietly, gesturing with his head for Derek to follow him. He picks up his blanket as he bypasses the couch and heads straight for the bedroom.

He doesn’t even bother trying to be awkward about it, just climbs straight into bed and pulls the covers up over him.

Derek doesn’t move until Stiles asks, “Are you gonna stand there all night and watch or are you gonna join me? Because I gotta tell you, the first option sounds very Edward Cullen-ish and I’m not really down with that so.”

It works. Derek huffs a laugh and crawls in next to him. Stiles doesn’t hesitate in plastering himself against Derek’s back, sliding his arms around Derek’s waist and burying his face in his neck. Having him here again, in Stiles’ arms, where he can breathe him in, it’s the best feeling in the entire world.

“Stiles we should-“

“We can talk in the morning,” Stiles murmurs, closing his eyes. “Can we please just sleep tonight?”

“Okay,” Derek whispers, resting his arm on top of Stiles’ and folding their fingers together.

Stiles sighs in relief, pressing the faintest kiss to Derek’s shoulder.

With the steady rise and falls of Derek’s breaths and Derek’s thumb idly tracing over his palm, for the first time in four days, he sleeps.


	32. The One With The Rumour

“Who is _that?_ ” Stiles whispers to Lydia as he pours himself a drink, sneakily glancing over his shoulder at the drop dead gorgeous dude standing in the living room, sipping a scotch.

“You don’t remember?” Lydia asks quietly. When he shakes his head Lydia clucks her tongue. “Stiles, that’s _Derek Hale_.”

“Derek Hale?” he whisper-yells incredulously. “ _That’s_ Derek Hale?”

“Yes. He’s Isaac new roommate,” Lydia informs him, swirling her drink with a mixer.

Stiles picks up his glass, casually turning so he’s still facing Lydia but also directly in Derek’s line of sight. “ _God_ he’s changed since high school.”

Lydia hums, smirking until she takes stock of Stiles’ expression. “Oh don’t even think about it Stiles.”

“What?” he asks innocently but Lydia doesn’t buy it for a second.

“I know that look and I’m telling you it’s a bad idea. You two didn’t exactly have the best relationship in high school.”

“That was years ago!” Stiles dismisses, waving a hand. “Besides I think he’s giving me the _look_ ,” he adds, grinning loftily. 

Lydia glances behind her before turning back to Stiles with an unimpressed look. “Is that look a death glare?”

“It’s not a death glare!” he huffs indignantly. “It’s a smoulder.”

“Whatever you say.” Lydia singsongs, rolling her eyes and looking completely done with the conversation before she saunters off to talk to Allison.

Stiles wanders over to Derek as soon as she’s gone. “Hey man, I don’t know if you remember me but I’m-“

“Stiles Stilinski,” Derek says flatly. “I remember.”

“Oh.” He wasn’t really expecting Derek to sound so…frosty? “Right. Well, how’ve you been?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Derek retorts except it’s not really flirty? It almost seems angry.

Before Stiles can say anymore Derek is stalking off to stand with Isaac.

*

When they gather around the table for dinner Stiles doesn’t intentionally end up next to Derek. He’d wanted to sit between Scott and Lydia but Lydia was sitting on the other side of Allison. It was pure coincidence that Derek ended up in the seat between Stiles and Erica.

“So Derek, how did you end up being Isaac’s roommate?” Stiles asks interestedly, trying to casually engage him conversation.

Derek just glares at him though so Isaac answers – he must be feeling sorry for Stiles, in any other circumstance he’d laugh. “I work with his sister and she mentioned he was looking for a place. You remember Cora, Stiles?”

“Oh yeah,” Stiles nods. “Where’s she today?” And that’s clearly the wrong question to ask because Derek’s glare turns murderous.

“She and Derek’s other sister are visiting their uncle,” Erica cuts in quickly. “He and Derek don’t get along.”

Stiles has a brief respite from the metaphorical daggers Derek’s throwing at him when he turns to scowl at Erica instead. She just raises her eyebrows at him until he huffs and stares down at his food.

Stiles suffers through a few more minutes of silence before he cracks. “Okay, I’m sorry, did I _do_ something to you or-“

“Oh so now you wanna talk about it?” Derek snaps.

“Uh I would if I knew what “it” was.”

“I think Derek’s still kind of upset with you because of the way you treated him in high school,” Erica explains, giving him a pointed look that screams, “ _shut up!”_

“But that was forever ago!” Stiles protests. “And you gave as good as you got, man, don’t even pretend you didn’t.”

“Well I wasn’t the one who told the entire school we had _sex!”_ Derek barks back.

And that’s- what.

“What?” Stiles asks perplexedly. “I never told anyone we had sex.”

“Wait you _actually_ had sex?” Isaac demands. “I thought you made that up!”

“ _Again_ , I never told anyone we had sex,” Stiles insists. “We _almost_ did but nothing actually happened. We just made out in an empty bedroom at a party.”

“And yet somehow the whole school seemed to know all the intimate details of my sexual prowess the week after that stupid party,” Derek remarks hotly.

“Derek, I swear to god I never told anyone,” Stiles says sincerely. “That’s not the kind of thing I’d go spreading around the school. Even if it was true.”

“Wait is _that_ why you thought he was giving you a look earlier?” Lydia says suddenly from the other side of the table. “Because the last time you were greeted with that look it almost led to hate sex?”

“Okay first of all, thank you for  _that_ ,” Stiles says sarcastically. “Second of all, yes,” he mutters.

“You thought I was giving you a _look?”_ Derek asks incredulously.

“Hey you’ve grown since high school but I remember that look, okay? I remember it _distinctly_ ,” Stiles retorts emphatically.

Derek blushes, ducking his head before he remembers he’s supposed to be mad. “Well if you didn’t spread it around the school, who did?”

“Uh I think I might know,” Allison offers tentatively.

The whole table’s gaze snaps to her and she smiles weakly. “If I remember correctly, Kate didn’t exactly take your break up well,” she directs to Derek. Kate’s Allison’s cousin and was Derek’s girlfriend in high school. God, their break up had been catastrophic – Kate had made the entire school’s life a living hell while they were apart. “If it happened at a party would it really be that hard to believe that she saw the two of you together and made an assumption?”

“Or spread the rumour anyway despite knowing it was false,” Lydia says bluntly. She blinks confusedly when the whole table turns to stare at her. “What? She was a bitch,” she shrugs.

“Kate and I got back together a week later,” Derek says faintly, as if it’s all suddenly clicking into place.

“So she told everyone you and Stiles slept together so you’d _think_ it was Stiles who did it and not want to be with him again?” Boyd surmises.

“Probably,” Derek croaks. He looks so lost, all the bravado and anger from earlier completely gone. When he looks at Stiles it’s like he’s seeing him for the first time.

“If all that stuff hadn’t happened, would things have been different?” Stiles asks bravely. “Would you have wanted to be with me back then?”

“Yeah I-“ Derek stops himself, face flushing again as he gazes around the table. And yeah this probably isn’t the best conversation to have an audience with but even if they went somewhere private his nosy-ass friends would still be listening through the door. “Yes,” he says certainly. “I thought you finally realised that night that all the times we used to fight was really just pigtail pulling.”

“That’s kind of what I hoped,” Stiles admits. “But then you shut me down the next week at school and I figured you’d changed your mind…”

Jackson huffs from the other side of the table. “Will you two fucking kiss or something so we can get on with our food?” he demands. “I’m starving. And I did not come here to reminisce about Stilinski’s lack of a sex life.”

Stiles huffs but looks back at Derek with a hesitant smile. “Wanna maybe start over?”

Derek nods and Stiles beams at him. The entire table seems to breathe an audible sigh of relief and everyone goes back to eating their food. It’s nice, dinner goes far more smoothly after that and if Derek has his leg pressed right up against Stiles’ under the table or Stiles drops his hand halfway through dessert to rest on Derek’s knee well, they’re starting over, right?

 


	33. The One With Rachel's Book

Stiles doesn’t necessarily have a _habit_ of sleeping in Derek’s bed. Sometimes it just happens. Derek’s bed is more comfortable than his and he has like ten thousand pillows. So sometimes if Stiles is home alone in the apartment, he’ll slip out of his own room and nap in Derek’s. He’s pretty sure Derek knows and doesn’t care so he’s not having any moral struggle over it or anything.

He’s just finished the super long report he has to fill out for work so he decides to take a nap in Derek’s bed until Derek gets home with dinner. It sounds like the perfect waste of his afternoon to be honest.

As soon as he’s in the room he dives onto the bed, flopping back amid all the pillows and pushing the blanket out from underneath him to pull it over him. He moves some of the pillows out of the way because if his head is too elevated he’ll get a crick in his neck and rolls onto his side, sliding an arm underneath his remaining pillow. He’s all ready to get settled down and drift off, but then his hand connects with something hard.

Stiles frowns, sitting up and moving the pillow aside. There’s a book underneath it. It looks pretty unassuming from the cover so he decides to flick through it, finding the page Derek left off on – Derek’s a literary nerd so he usually reads the good stuff. He skims the page lazily until he gets to the last paragraph and his eyes widen in shock.

Holy shit. Derek’s reading a _dirty book_.

Stiles flips to the blurb at the back and discovers that Cosmo acclaimed it to be, “ _a steamy tale of love and despair_ ,” that got them hot under the collar. The book description itself isn’t very detailed – probably wants to keep all the juicy secrets for inside the pages. He opens it back up to the page he’d been on and reads over the scene again.

It isn’t until he hears the front door unlock that he realises he’s been sitting there, reading, for the last two hours. He hastily snaps the book shut and shoves it back under Derek’s pillow, jumping off the bed and forcing himself to take a deep breath before he comes into the living room.

Derek’s at the island that separates their kitchen and living room, unloading take out boxes from a plastic bag. “Hey,” he greets before he seems to notice where Stiles came from and frowns. “What were you doing in my room?”

“Just takin’ a nap,” Stiles shrugs, hopping up onto one of the bar stools at the counter and pulling the carton of Kung po chicken toward him.

It’s a regular enough occurrence that Derek doesn’t seem suspicious, just hands him his chop sticks and goes to the fridge to get them drinks.

Stiles tries to keep his mind blank during dinner but all he can think of is Derek’s book. If Derek notices that he’s acting weird he doesn’t say anything but Stiles catches him giving him strange looks every few minutes for the rest of the night.

*

Derek’s book comes back to him at random times. Like, sometimes they’re just hanging out, doing nothing, and he’ll remember Derek’s reading about Captain Hans and Laurel doin’ the nasty and then things get weird.

He slips up three nights later. They’re all sitting around the coffee table in Scott and Allison’s apartment, eating dinner, when Stiles is suddenly wondering if Derek’s gotten to the part where Hans and Laurel have sex in the barn during the storm yet.

It’s a complete accident when he says, “Hey Derek, can you pass me a slice of penis?”

The entire room silences instantly and eight pairs of eyes swivel to stare at him. Derek’s frozen, hand stretched out halfway to reach for the pizza.

“I- I mean pizza. _I mean pizza!”_ Stiles stammers to correct himself.

“Are you sure you’re not tryna drop a hint, Stilinski?” Jackson asks, smirking. Asshole.

“ _Yes_ ,” Stiles huffs. Derek wordlessly hands him a piece of pizza before looking steadfastly back at his own food, ears going pink.

“What’s on your mind, Stiles?” Isaac asks innocently – even though he’s anything but.

“Nothing,” Stiles grumbles, scowling when he starts snickering.

“Are you sure?” Erica presses, grinning before biting her lip to suppress her laugh.

“Positive,” Stiles sniffs, taking a huge bite of his pizza and ignoring them.

The ribbing continues because of course it does. After a few minutes of increasingly lewd comments he ends up yelling, “ _I read your book, okay?”_ to a completely shell-shocked Derek.

“You went through my stuff?” Derek demands when he seems to get his voice back.

“I found it when I was taking a nap in your bed,” Stiles protests.

“Why were you taking a nap in Derek’s bed?” Scott asks confusedly.

“Are you _sure_ there’s nothing you wanna tell us?” Boyd repeats, raising his eyebrows at them both.

Lydia’s the only one who seems to have actually paid attention to what Stiles said because she sits forward, eyeing them speculatively. “What book?” she asks interestedly.

“It’s just a book,” Derek mumbles, looking embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”

“Well it’s obviously not nothing,” Lydia reasons. “If it’s got Stiles thinking about sex.”

“You say that like I’m not thinking about sex at least fifty percent of the time,” Stiles scoffs.

“It’s one of those erotica books, isn’t it? Derek, you’re supposed to give them to _me_ when you finish, not Stiles!” Erica admonishes, suddenly looking put out.

“Wait this isn’t the first one you’ve read?” Stiles asks incredulously, turning in his seat to stare at Derek.

“Can we please talk about something else?” Derek begs, face flushed and looking too damn cute for his own good. Stiles is having a lot of conflicting emotions right now.

Allison quickly changes the subject, giving her scary glare to anyone who tries to bring it up again. Derek’s probably gonna send her a fruit basket tomorrow to say thank you.

*

It’s not that Stiles _means_ to tease Derek about the book, but sometimes he just makes it so easy. It’s not exactly difficult to slip in an innuendo here and there to see Derek suddenly get all flustered and flushed.

It’s funny until, well…

Stiles should’ve seen this coming. He’s known for a long time that if he teases Derek, Derek will tease back – and he’ll usually do it when Stiles is least expecting him to.

They’re in their apartment by themselves and Stiles has been messing with him again, swooning about how Derek should, “thoroughly debauch him like Hans does to Laurel.”

It’s fine and Stiles is content with laughing to himself while Derek rolls his eyes except suddenly Derek’s crowding him against the counter and pressing into his space. “You’re right, Stiles,” he breathes, hands clamping down on the breakfast bar behind Stiles, boxing him in.

“I- I am?” Stiles stutters, not quite sure where to look. Derek’s body is a firm line of heat against his front and the countertop is digging uncomfortably into his back.

Derek nods. “I’ve tried to fight it,” he admits quietly. “But you’re right. I should take you. Just like I want you,” he adds, gaze darkening.

“R-really?” Stiles asks uneasily, swallowing hard. It’s not that he hasn’t _thought_ about it – he just didn’t know Derek had too.

Derek nods again, eyes boring into Stiles’. “What d’you say?” he whispers and fuck- who taught Derek how to seductively whisper in people’s ears? Stiles is going to _die_.

“I- I-“ Stiles fumbles helplessly to try and figure out a response. In the end he thinks, _fuck it_ and surges forward, clutching his fingers in Derek’s t-shirt and crushes their lips together.

Derek makes a noise of surprise against his mouth, kissing back for a second before ripping himself away in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing?” he gasps. He’s looking at Stiles like that’s the last thing he ever expected to happen.

“What- But you just said-“ Stiles trails off in confusion as Derek’s eyes go as wide as saucers.

“I was _joking!”_ Derek splutters. “I was just trying to get you to shut up!”

And- oh. Well. That hurts.

“I- right, yeah, no of course,” Stiles mumbles, slipping away from Derek since his hands aren’t boxing him in anymore. “I’m just gonna-“

“Wait.” Derek catches his wrist as he tries to make an escape to his bedroom - which he plans to never leave ever again – and forces him to turn back around. “Why did you kiss me?” Derek asks quietly. His expression is too hard to read. Stiles can’t figure out if he’s angry or well, hopeful.

“I was just playing chicken with you,” Stiles mutters, looking anywhere but Derek’s eyes.

“Stiles,” Derek says again, ducking his head until Stiles reluctantly meets his gaze. “Why did you kiss me?”

“I wanted to,” Stiles says eventually, shrugging evasively and staring down at where Derek’s hand is still circling his wrist.

Derek doesn’t say anything for a long time but then he’s leaning in, nose brushing against Stiles’ before he kisses him softly. It’s a stark contrast to the way Stiles kissed him earlier but it’s perfect. It’s one of those tingly kind of kisses that makes his chest feel tight. He sighs into it, falling against Derek and wrapping his arms around him as one of Derek’s hands moves up to cradle his jaw while the other situates itself on Stiles’ hip.

They’ll get to the debauchery later.

 


	34. The One Where Joey Tells Rachel

“You’ll never guess who I met today,” Erica exclaims as she takes a seat on the last empty couch cushion, balancing her coffee mug and muffin precariously in her hands until she sets them down on the table.

“Who?” Derek asks, expecting it to be some famous person or something. Erica has a knack for running into celebrities when they’re trying to be inconspicuous.

“Stiles’ soulmate,” she gushes.

Derek feels Stiles freeze where he’s leaning against him and his arm that had been around Stiles’ shoulders slackens in shock.

“Excuse me?” Derek’s voice must sound strained because Stiles leans into him just a little more, reaching up to tangle his fingers with the hand Derek has resting on his shoulder.

“What are you talking about?” Stiles snorts, rolling his eyes exasperatedly and Erica rolls hers right back.

“Stiles, I’m telling you, this guy is your soulmate,” she insists. “His name is Scott, he was one of my massage clients and I swear the entire hour it felt like I was talking to _you_.”

“That sounds like a bit of an over exaggeration-“ Derek starts to say but Erica talks over him.

“I swear to god you just have to meet him and you’ll see it,” she pleads.

“Well too bad we’ll never see him again,” Derek says casually, trying not to be obvious about the death grip he’s got on Stiles’ hand right now.

“Actually I got his number, I told him I’d introduce them.”

Derek is too busy weighing the pros and cons of destroying Erica’s phone to respond.

*

Stiles and Scott get along like they’ve known each other for years. They talk a mile a minute about video games and stupid things they used to do as kids and all the latest action movies out right now. All the while Derek sits silently beside Stiles, alternating between glaring daggers at Erica, who’s practically preening over how well they’re getting along, and making pointed statements about his and Stiles’ relationship whenever Scott says something to him.

“-Yeah so we were in San Francisco at the time,” Scott is explaining. Derek hasn’t really been paying attention to his story but it offers him a good segue.

“Oh hey, Stiles and I went to San Francisco for our fifth anniversary,” he says conversationally. Stiles raises his eyebrows at the oddly cheery tone to Derek’s voice but doesn’t comment on it. Scott only smiles affably – he’s frustratingly nice, it makes it difficult for Derek to hate him.

“Really? That’s awesome,” Scott grins. “It’s so nice there, right?”

Derek only offers him a tight smile and a nod.

After a moment of awkward silence Scott and Stiles launch into another conversation and Derek watches helplessly. It seems so effortless for them, they have _everything_ in common and they talk like they’re both on the exact same train of thought.

It makes Derek worry honestly. He never considered before all the things he and Stiles don’t have in common because they always worked. But maybe Stiles has actually been looking for more. Someone who won’t just _listen_ to him debate Marvel versus DC but actually _contribute_ to the conversation.

He tries not to panic but the more Scott and Stiles talk and make plans, the more the tiny voice in his head that tells him he’s not good enough for Stiles gets louder and louder.

Scott leaves eventually but not before exchanging numbers with Stiles and arranging to meet up again in a few days. Erica leaves with him, giving Stiles a quiet, “You’re welcome,” and Derek a perplexed look when he scowls at her.

Stiles sighs happily as he flops back down on the couch next to Derek after closing the door. “Man, Scott is _awesome_.”

“Yeah he’s great,” Derek mutters.

Stiles narrows his eyes, giving him a sidelong glance. “I detect a bit of resentment there, Mr Hale,” he teases.

Derek huffs and meets gaze. “Fine. Want me to say it?”

“Say what?” Stiles asks confusedly.

“That Erica was right! He _is_ your soulmate. He’s perfect for you, better than I ever could be and I don’t blame you if you’d rather be with him over me.”

Stiles stares at him in shock, mouth gaping open. “What are you _talking about?”_

“Scott- he’s-“ Derek tries to explain weakly, swallowing hard at the sincere expression on Stiles face.

“Derek,” Stiles says, taking his hands. “Scott’s amazing. He’s funny and nice and we seem to get along really well but I’m not _in love_ with him. I wanna be his friend, I don’t want to date him.”

“But-“

“No, listen.” Stiles scooches forward a bit until their knees are touching. “Maybe Scott and I like a lot of the same stuff but would he watch movies with me at three o’clock in the morning because I can’t sleep? Or make me breakfast in bed on Sunday mornings? Or sit with me and play with my hair on the days where I come home stressed out from work?”

“Probably,” Derek grumbles and Stiles laughs.

“Fine. Maybe he would. But the point is he doesn’t. You do,” he says softly, a smile tugging at his lips. “You’re it for me, Derek. Scott might be my platonic soulmate or whatever but you’re so it. I’m never gonna want anyone else.”

“Me either,” Derek croaks when he convinces himself to speak again. Stiles huffs a laugh and leans forward to brush their lips together.

“You’re my person,” Stiles whispers then, a firm resolution in his voice that makes Derek’s chest constrict.

“You’re my person,” Derek repeats.


	35. The One With The Candy Hearts

“You promised to never set me up on a blind date again after that thing with the guy in your frat house when I came to visit you freshman year of college,” Stiles reminds.

“I know, man,  _I know_. But this is  _Allison_ ,” Scott says desperately. “And she doesn’t want her roommate to be alone on Valentine’s Day okay? Apparently he just got out of a bad relationship.”

Stiles makes a face. “Ugh a rebound date? I hate being the rebound date, Scott.”

“Stiles,” Scott slips off the arm chair to kneel in front of him, clutching his hands together in a pleading gesture. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to ask Allison out for months. This could be my one chance. I need your help with this.”

Fuck. He’s doing the puppy eyes. He knows Stiles can’t resist the puppy eyes.

“Fine,” he sighs. “But  _only_  because I’m sick of you pining about her, alright? You’ve gotta woo her tomorrow night, man, because I love you but I can’t deal with you moping around the apartment anymore.”

Scott makes a noise reminiscent of a squeal and scrambles to his feet to jump on the couch and attack Stiles with a hug.

*

“So what’s this guy like anyway?” Stiles asks, fiddling with the ten thousand forks laid out in front of him. Why did Scott have to pick the most expensive, fancy restaurant in the goddamn world for this stupid double date?

Scott shrugs. “I haven’t met him before. I’ve only been to Allison’s place once and he wasn’t there. All I know is that she said he’s attractive but shy and a little quiet until he feels comfortable around you.”

Stiles internally groans – he’s about to spend an evening filling awkward silences, isn’t he?

Scott sits up straight then, craning his neck to look towards the entrance. “ _There she is_ ,” he breathes, stumbling out of his seat to greet Allison as she makes her way over.

Stiles lazily drags his eyes away from the table and they connect with- Oh no.

Oh fuck no.

Absolutely not.

“ _Derek?!”_ he exclaims.

Derek still has the same pinched up expression he gets when he’s pissed off – Stiles is annoyed he even remembers what that face looks like.

“You didn’t tell me Scott’s roommate was  _Stiles_ ,” Derek scowls at Allison who’s looking between them unsurely – her hands still resting on Scott’s arms like she’d been about to lean in to kiss him hello when Stiles had piped up. Oops.

“You two know each other?” Scott asks uncertainly.

Derek scoffs, crossing his arms, but doesn’t comment.

“Derek was my college boyfriend,” Stiles says, never taking his narrowed eyes off the other man. “Remember the one I told you about Scott?”

“Your Derek is Allison’s Derek?” Scott squeaks, sounding alarmed. He remembers then.

Stiles had dated Derek on and off during sophomore year of college and they’d fought  _a lot_. The blow-out that had ended their relationship had been so loud the entire floor had been banging on Stiles’ door telling them to shut it.

“I’m not having dinner with him,” Derek says resolutely and Stiles snorts.

“Like I want to have dinner with you either, buddy.”

Allison bites her lip anxiously for a second before drifting away from Scott and drawing Derek away from the table, murmuring to Scott that they’ll be right back.

Scott slumps into the seat next to Stiles, resting his chin in his hand morosely. Stiles is only absently aware of him, more focused on Derek and Allison a few feet away.

It’s been four years since Stiles graduated college and four years since he’s seen any sight of Derek. He doesn’t look that different – his beard’s a little thicker maybe and there are little crinkles in the corners of his eyes only noticeable when he frowns but he’s still as devastatingly beautiful as Stiles remembers.

It’s weird though because he _is_  different. Stiles can see it in the relenting look on his face at Allison’s pleas. He can see the resignation mingled with a soft fondness in his expression that was hardly ever there a few years ago. The small smile he sends Allison before they come back to the table makes Stiles’ heart lurch.

“Derek’s agreed to play nice if Stiles does,” Allison says, looking hopefully at Stiles.

He meets Derek’s gaze, who only shrugs, looking bored and slightly uncomfortable, before looking back to Allison. “Sure,” he smiles.

What’s the worst thing that could happen, right?

*

Dinner is awkward.

As soon as Scott and Allison realise engaging Stiles and Derek in conversation means a potential argument every five seconds they just ignore them altogether.

Him are Derek are being juvenile, he knows that, but he can’t help it. Something about Derek just-  _gets under his skin_.

Like how Derek takes up all the leg room under the table. Stiles kicks him to make him move and Derek glowers at him, kicking back. And then they keep kicking each other’s shins until Stiles’ knee jerks up and hits the table, sloshing all their wine and making Allison and Scott glare at them.

Or how Derek contradicts everything Stiles says. Just because! Because he knows how much it annoys Stiles. Like he’s doing it  _on purpose_.

Or how Derek orders for him and raises a challenging eyebrow. Stiles hasn’t decided if he’s more annoyed about the gesture or the fact that Derek still knows his tastes down to a tee.

Scott and Allison skip out just before dessert and Scott leaves Stiles with his credit card as an apology.

“ _Finally_ ,” Stiles drawls, sliding down in his chair. “We can _leave_.”

Derek gives him a considering look that Stiles has a hard time looking away from. “Or,” he says slowly. “We could have dessert? I mean, Scott was kind enough offer to pay for it and all.”

Stiles looks down at the card in his hand and then back up at Derek – who’s smirking slightly now that Stiles has caught on – and grins. “Y’know, you’re right. It’d be a slap in the face not to accept such a kind gift.”

Stiles raises a hand, stopping the waiter that’s passing them. “Excuse me, could I get two chocolate volcano cakes-“

“Better make it four,” Derek intones casually.

Stiles bites down on his lip to keep from laughing and nods solemnly. “Right, four. And the most expensive bottle of champagne you’ve got.”

The waiter gives him a peculiar smile but writes it down on his pad. “Special night?” he asks with mild interest.

Stiles looks over at Derek, feels his stomach doing flips just like it used to seeing him smile. “Something like that.”

*

Dessert is actually really nice when it’s just the two of them.

Derek makes these shy little jokes that are nothing like the sarcastic remarks he usually throws at Stiles and the bashful smile he gets on his face every time Stiles laughs makes something inside him crack open.  _And the way he laughs_  – god it’s even more endearing than Stiles remembered.

He was right though, Derek  _has_  changed.

He’s not as moody, doesn’t sit with his shoulders hunched like he’s trying to protect himself, doesn’t look like he’s betrayed himself every time he smiles and something about the way he speaks now is softer, more peaceful.

Derek admits at some point that college was the first time he was away from his sisters after his family died and it made him a total dick – Stiles is at least fifty percent responsible for all their relationship issues so he doesn’t let Derek turn it into an excuse or an apology.

Sophomore year makes a lot more sense to Stiles now though. Derek used never talk about his family, only that he had two sisters who lived a couple of hours away. He used to get defensive a lot and hated talking about his feelings but Stiles wasn’t a big fan of that either so it’s not like all the blame’s on him.

“You know I’m actually having fun tonight,” Stiles laughs in disbelief as he hands Scott’s card off to the waiter.

“Don’t sound _too_  surprised,” Derek says drily, smiling to himself when Stiles laughs again.

“I guess a lot’s changed since we were twenty, huh?”

Something in Derek’s eyes changes then and his gaze travels down Stiles’ body to where it’s hidden by the table and then back up again. He nods faintly when his gaze returns to Stiles’ eyes, lips tugging up in the millionth smirk he’s thrown Stiles’ way tonight – it’s driving him to absolute distraction.

Stiles raises an eyebrow, wets his lips and watches Derek’s eyes track the movement.

This time when Derek’s foot slides along his calf it’s decidedly  _not_ with the intention of kicking him.

 


	36. The One With The Cuddling

Derek is- god, Derek’s just- he’s just  _really comfortable_  okay?

And it’s not like Stiles purposely tried to find out this fact. He’d stumbled upon it. One day.  _Accidentally_.

Stiles is finally sitting Scott down to watch Star Wars – and after he’d found out Derek had all the DVDs he’d forced him to come along too - and everything is great, awesome actually. It’s not very often the three of them get to hang out together like they did in the old days. (Minus the hating each other’s guts and running from murderers part.)

Except then Scott gets a text from Allison halfway through the second movie and gets his goofy Allison smile on his face and Stiles  _knows_  he’s totally not paying attention to the movie anymore. So he sighs exaggeratedly, pauses the TV and punches Scott’s shoulder. “Go canoodle with Allison,” he huffs exasperatedly. “We can watch the rest tomorrow but so help me god, I will tie you to this couch, McCall-“

He’s cut off by Scott tackling him in a grateful hug. “Thank you!” he exclaims quickly as he jumps off the couch. “The movies are awesome Stiles, I swear. I’ll be here bright and early tomorrow, I promise.”

“Can we change bright and early to noon?”

Scott grins and nods in acceptance. “You got it! Later Derek!” And then he’s racing out the door.

“So,” Stiles says because Derek is exactly the kind of little shit who refuses to break awkward silences.

Derek drags his eyes away from the paused TV and looks at Stiles expectantly.

“Wanna keep watching?” he asks hesitantly. Making Derek sociable has been a long, tentative but successful process so Scott’s been teaching Stiles to tread more carefully. Apparently he’s too blunt.

Derek’s face is blank but Stiles knows he’s considering it. In the end he sighs, “Fine,” like he’s doing Stiles a  _favour_ by staying. Fucker.

But whatever, the point is they keep watching and it’s surprisingly comfortable between them. Derek puts up with Stiles’ running commentary, doesn’t hog the popcorn bowl, actually gets Stiles a drink too when he goes out to the kitchen to refill his own.

It’s actually turning out to be a really nice evening.

Stiles doesn’t remember falling asleep. One minute he’s informing Derek on useless pieces of trivia that he already knows, the next he’s sleepily blinking his eyes open.

There’s something soft underneath him, certainly not his leather couch – it feels like cotton. He buries into it for a second, it smells familiar but he can’t figure out why in his sleep-addled state. He opens his eyes again, blearily lifting his head.

He’s barely raised his head an inch when his eyes connect with Derek’s half-open ones.

Oh shit.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

He’s lying on top of Derek. The soft cottony fabric that smells like home is Derek’s _sweater_. He fell asleep on Derek.

_He fell asleep on Derek_.

He makes a butchered squawking sound, throwing himself off Derek and subsequently, the couch.

Derek looks confused for about half a second before a look of horror descends on his face and he’s jumping off the couch in an instant.

A stare-off ensues, and Stiles raises an eyebrow as if challenging Derek to say  _one word._

Derek looks caught between angry and nervous and  _no, it shouldn’t be cute! Pull it together, Stilinski._

Eventually Derek picks up his jacket from where it’d been laying on the arm chair and awkwardly announces he’s leaving.

“Yes good. That’s a- yeah. Okay.” Stiles internally cringes and Derek gives him an unreadable expression before slipping out the door.

*

Stiles can’t stop thinking about the nap. It’s the best nap he’s ever had in his entire life. He’s pretty sure his naps as a baby weren’t even that good. It’s such a good nap Stiles is sleep-deprived because he can’t stop thinking about it.

It’s a week later and it’s the first time he’s been alone with Derek since the incident and dammit Stiles wants a nap and he’s gonna make sure he gets one.

“So what’re you up to today?” he asks casually.

Derek raises his eyebrows – okay, so not that casual then. “Nothing really,” he says slowly, absently thumbing through his book. “What about you?”

Stiles shrugs, making a noncommittal noise. “I don’t know. I’m pretty tired, I think I might take a  _nap_.”

Derek hums faintly, absorbed in his book again until Stiles’ words sink in and he freezes, his head snapping to Stiles. He narrows his eyes. “Don’t-“

“Dude please,” Stiles whines. “You know it was good.”

Derek’s face flushes a delightful pink and Stiles tries not to laugh. “It wasn’t-“ Derek looks away, shaking his head uncomfortably. “We can’t do that again, Stiles.”

“ _Why not?”_  Stiles draws out his words like a petulant child, he’s practically pouting.

“Because- Because  _we can’t_ ,” Derek insists with a huff, pointedly looking back at his book.

“Great reason,” Stiles snorts.

Derek glares at the page he’s apparently reading. “We’re not napping together again.”

“Fine,” Stiles scowls.

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“ _Good_.”

*

Stiles tries again the next day. The pack had been having lunch at the diner in town but then Allison and Scott were going to the movies. And Lydia was making Jackson take her shopping. And Isaac, Erica and Boyd had to get back to work. And then it was just him and Derek.

Stiles sighs exaggeratedly in his seat.

Derek gives him a dry look in return.

“It’s pretty chilly today, huh?” Stiles says offhandedly. “And man, that lunch totally wiped me out. I am  _exhausted_.”

Derek expression changes to unimpressed but Stiles can tell his interest is piqued.

“Yeah I think I’m just gonna go home and curl up on my couch. Wrap myself up in my blanket and just have a nice long _nap_.”

Derek’s clutching at his glass of water with a white-knuckled grip when he asks in a strained voice, “Why would I care about that?”

Stiles shrugs, waves a hand airily. “I’m just saying, if anyone’s looking for me that’s where I’ll be.”

Stiles slides out of the booth, gives him an unsubtle look and saunters out of the restaurant. He’s barely been in his jeep three seconds when Derek’s climbing into the passenger seat and levelling him with a look.

“We tell  _no one_  about this.”

*

They don’t tell anyone but they also don’t really try to hide it.

Stiles almost always sits next to Derek on pack movie nights now – and tends to fall asleep on him halfway through the movie at least ninety percent of the time. He always wakes up in his own bed with Derek wrapped around him and it’s pure  _bliss_.

Another bonus that seems to come with being cuddle buddies is casual touches.

Stiles is so on board with casual touches.

There’re so many moments where Derek runs a hand over Stiles’ hair, across the back of his neck, over his hand, sometimes he even rests his hand on  _Stiles’ knee_. Stiles doesn’t know what to do with himself besides lean into them.

Because cuddling Derek is fucking awesome. Stiles feels giddy when Derek’s arms wrap around him and pull him close. He sighs contentedly whenever his head falls to rest on Derek’s chest and lets his eyes drift shut.

And he really likes learning about this other side of Derek. Like how petting Derek’s hair practically has him purring like a cat. And Derek’s ticklish but only on his left side. And he doesn’t have a preference about being the big or little spoon. And he likes to drum his fingers on Stiles’ chest in time with his heartbeat.

And basically, all this information is doing is making Stiles fall stupidly in love with him.

*

Derek always comes over for naps when it rains – it’s like he’s tapped into the weather or something.

Right now the rain is beating heavily against Stiles’ bedroom window and it’s dark – the only light coming from Stiles’ bedside lamp. They’re wrapped up in the blanket, Stiles lying half on top of Derek, his chin resting on his forearms where they’re folded over Derek’s chest.

Derek’s hands are moving against his sides – counting his heartbeat again – and Stiles feels so unbelievably warm and cosy and just-  _whole_  that he has the insane urge to kiss Derek.

He’s aware  _idly_  that it’s insane, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like the right thing to do right now.

His gaze catches Derek’s and he makes his decision. He inches forward until their heads are tipping together and then he’s kissing Derek softly. It’s brief, nothing more than a press of lips, something quiet and affectionate. But it’s perfect.

“Why did you do that?” Derek asks quietly when he pulls back.

Stiles grins, ducks his head. “I was thinkin’ ‘bout kissing you. So I did.”

Derek’s silent and when Stiles looks up he’s frowning slightly.

He has a sudden realisation that maybe Derek didn’t want to kiss him and immediately starts to panic. “Should I not have- oh my god I’m such an idiot, I-“

“No,” Derek cuts him off, his hands reaching up to squeeze Stiles’ biceps. “I- I wasn’t ready.”

Stiles’ lips quirk. “You needed time to prepare yourself?” he asks teasingly.

Derek’s answer is to lean forward and capture Stiles’ lips in a heart-melting kiss. It’s so-  _it’s so_.  Stiles doesn’t even think there’s a word in the English language to describe the tingly, heart-stuttering feeling he gets kissing Derek. He just knows he wants to feel it for the rest of his life.

Derek ends the kiss with a satisfied hum and a mumbled, “Much better.”

Stiles scoffs but he can’t stop grinning. He kisses Derek’s forehead before pulling back properly and pillowing his head on Derek’s chest.

“I’m really glad we accidentally fell asleep watching Star Wars.”

Derek laughs, it’s silent but Stiles can feel it in the way his chest rumbles. It’s a nice feeling. “Me too.”

 


	37. The One With The Cuffs

“Dad, this is a cruel and unusual punishment,” Stiles complains loudly.

His dad barely looks up from his paperwork, affording Stiles a brief unimpressed look and then going back to work.

“I’ve gotta give you credit though,” Stiles continues, going for his usual tactic for getting out of trouble – talking his dad to insanity. “I mean the handcuffs were clever, definitely one of your better ideas to keep me out of trouble.”

“Son, you know I’m immune to your incessant monologues, right?” the Sheriff intones. “You can’t get me to let you go by talking at me.”

“Are you sure? Because I can go all day, I’ve been in enough hostage situations to-“

He’s interrupted by a soft knock on his dad’s office door and then Derek’s peeking his head in –Stiles still can’t wrap his head around seeing him as a deputy.

Derek’s eyes flit to Stiles first, zeroing in on where he’s handcuffed to the chair in front of his dad’s desk. He just shakes his head like he doesn’t want to know and then gives the Sheriff an apologetic look.

“Parrish just called in,” he directs to Stiles’ dad. “Murray ate something funny on their lunch break and apparently he’s been throwing up for the last half hour. Parrish dropped him off home but he’s not finished his patrols yet. Want me to go out to meet him?”

The Sheriff deliberates over it for a second, gaze moving shortly to Stiles before he looks back to Derek. “Nah I’ll go. You keep writing up your reports from yesterday.”

Derek nods his acceptance and disappears back out into the main office again, giving Stiles a blink-and-you-miss-it smile. Stiles’ dad pushes his chair away from the desk and stands up, shrugging on his jacket and making his way to the door like Stiles isn’t still stuck in his chair.

“Uh dad?” he ventures.

His dad stops and turns back to him.

Stiles shakes his wrist and the handcuffs jangle against the arm rest of the chair. “Gonna let me out?”

The Sheriff gets a contemplative look on his face before he smirks. “No, you can stay there until I get back.”

“But I’m meeting Scott in an hour!” he immediately begins to protest. “It’s video game night,” he adds with a pout.

“And you can play them when I get back,” the Sheriff says simply, leaving no room for argument before he strolls out the door.

“You’re eating nothing but green vegetables for a week!” Stiles yells after him.

*

Stiles lasts about five minutes before he gets bored. His dad kept all the interesting files out of reach and Stiles already accidentally sent half the pens on the table flying across the room trying to spin them on his fingers.

It isn’t until his eyes land on the phone sitting on the desk, perfectly in reach, that things start to look up.

He scoots forward in his seat, turning the phone around toward him with his free hand and pressing down on the button connected to the phones in the main office.

“Derek,” he says cheerily. “Could you come in here for a second?”

A few minutes later he hears the door click open and cranes his neck to look around, finding Derek hovering in the doorway, half uncertain, half derisive.

“What do you want?”

“See those keys up there?” Stiles nods to the keys sitting innocently on top of the file cabinet. “Wanna grab them and uncuff me?”

Derek works his jaw as he considers it. “Why did he lock you to the chair in the first place?”

“Scott and I were tracking fairies at the preserve. We kinda ended up in someone’s backyard without really noticing,” Stiles mutters with an uneasy laugh. “They called the police.”

Derek looks caught between laughing and throwing his eyes heavenward as if to say, “of course you did.”

“If I unlock you _I’ll_  get in trouble,” Derek says like he’s thinking aloud.

“I’ll make it worth your while!” Stiles says quickly. Derek is his only hope right now. His dad won’t be back for an hour at least.

Derek frowns, walking across the room and leaning against the desk in front of Stiles. “How?”

“I’ll do your laundry for a week!”

Derek scoffs, shaking his head. “Like I’d let you touch my clothes.”

“Hey I know all about that super special fabric softener you use,” Stiles protests. “I’d do a great job.”

Derek’s face flushes but he recovers quickly, clearing his throat and glaring at Stiles. “What else’ve you got?”

“I’ll…” Stiles wracks his brain trying to come up with something he can offer Derek. “I’ll buy you a kitten!”

“Scott already promised me the stray at the clinic if no one claims her this week.”

Stiles slams his head on the table. When did big, scary, leather-jacket-wearing Derek Hale become so soft and  _adorable_? Since when is he the kind of person who gets that careful secret smile on his face thinking about baby animals? It makes Stiles’ heart do a weird pitter patter thing.

“I’ll…I’ll- I don’t know, Derek, just  _let me out!”_  Stiles whines morosely. “Look, I promise I’ll come back before my dad does and he won’t know the difference.”

Miraculously, Derek must think that sounds reasonable because he actually looks like he’s considering it. “Fine,” he sighs after a minute, standing up straight again and moving to the file cabinet. “But you’re not leaving the station.”

He crouches down, unlocking the cuff looped around the arm rest. “Or the room,” he adds as an afterthought.

“What am I supposed to do cooped up in here by myself?” Stiles complains, gaze shifting to Derek, who’s face is suddenly so, so close to his, slightly lower down because he’s still crouching. He’s looking up at Stiles like he’s frozen, breath caught in his throat.

Stiles himself feels a little bit light-headed, it’s too easy to get lost in Derek’s eyes this close up, it’s not fair. When his brain kicks back into gear again he raises an eyebrow, a silent question.

Derek’s answer is to surge up and kiss him fiercely.

Stiles’ hands fly up to wrap around Derek’s shoulders, the handcuffs hanging from his wrist bumping against Derek’s arm.

Derek’s practically in Stiles’ lap when he seems to remember himself and the fact that he’s supposed to be at work. He pulls back with a ragged breath, forehead still pressed to Stiles’.

“Well that’s new,” Stiles croaks.

Derek cracks an open, makes a valiant attempt of then rolling said eye and huffs out a laugh.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Stiles continues, sliding his hand down Derek’s arm. “Seriously I’m so on board with this-“

Derek pulls back properly, looks like he’s about to reply when his eyes catch something behind Stiles, face frozen in horror.

Stiles whips his head around to find his dad standing in the doorway. “Dad!” he exclaims hysterically. “What’s- what’re you-“

“We had to bring a guy in for a DUI,” his dad says faintly. “I was just about to let you out but it seems someone already did that for me?”

Derek wrenches back from Stiles in seconds, looking at the floor in favour of the Sheriff’s expectant gaze.

“We were just, um-“ Stiles attempts to explain but his dad cuts him off, holding up a hand.

“I think I can guess what you were just about to  _um_ ,” his dad sighs. Derek’s cheeks and ears go bright pink and Stiles can’t even relish in it because he probably looks the same.

His dad pinches the bridge of his nose before shaking his head with a laugh. “Deputy Hale, could you please escort my son home?”

“Yes, Sheriff. Absolutely!” Derek says quickly, immediately standing up straighter. He goes to grab Stiles’ hand to pull him up before hesitating, looking between Stiles and the Sheriff. His hand hovers awkwardly in the air until Stiles huffs and takes it, climbing out of the chair, handcuff still dangling from his right wrist – he’ll deal with it later.

Derek leads them past his dad and to the door in silence.

“Deputy,” the Sheriff calls just when Stiles thinks they’re home free. Derek turns with a terrified look on his face but the Sheriff only grins. “You’re staying for dinner.”

 

 


	38. The One With The Free Porn

Stiles and Derek have been dating for two months.

Two magical, _perfect_  months that Stiles is pretty sure are part of some weird fever dream because there’s no way he’s allowed to be this happy. There’s no way any human on the  _planet_  should be this happy.

There’s just one problem; Derek is leaving tomorrow.

This whole thing started because the roommate Jackson had when he went to college in London was coming over to visit him – god knows why – but of course on his first night in New York Jackson had something more important to do so they unloaded him on Stiles.

It was pretty disastrous at first – they got in a huge fight before they’d even known each other a full hour but then something kind of… clicked between them. (Okay, fine. They ended up angrily making out on the fire escape. Semantics.)

The point is - what was supposed to be a two week visit ended up lasting two months.

Two glorious months of breakfast for dinner and falling asleep curled up together on the couch and making out in the back of the movie theatre and bickering over inane, trivial things and lazy morning sex that usually lead into seventy-two hour sleepovers.

This is the best relationship Stiles has ever been in and it’s about to end. Because Derek has a job and a life in London and even if he did move back to America all his family lives on the other side of the country.

Basically they’re doomed.

“I don’t know what to dooooo,” Stiles whines, slumping back against the couch cushions and half-heartedly attempting to smother himself with a throw pillow.

Allison clucks her tongue and takes the throw pillow off him, settling it behind her head. “Say you want to do long distance.”

“When has that  _ever_  worked?” Stiles huffs.

“Tell him you love him!” Scott says encouragingly.

Stiles whips his head round to gape at Scott. “I can’t just  _say_  that!”

“Why not? It’s true, right?”

Stiles splutters for a solid minute before he manages to form words. “That’s beside the point!” he cries, waving a hand erratically.

“Pretty sure that _is_  the point,” Allison mutters under her breath and Stiles scowls at her.

“Look Stiles, if this relationship is as important as you think it is then it’s worth keeping. Don’t throw it away yet,” Scott says reasonably. Stiles wishes his dumb relationship advice didn’t always somehow manage to make sense.

*

Stiles hates goodbyes. They make him nervous and he always ends up saying something stupid. Just ask his dad every time September rolled around and Stiles had to leave for college.

Goodbyes like this though, ones that double as break-ups, yeah they suck.

“Would you stop looking at me like that?” Derek huffs, cupping Stiles’ jaw and ducking their heads close together.

“Like what?” Stiles asks morosely, hands curving around Derek’s elbows.

“Like I’m marching you to your death,” Derek laughs lightly, kissing Stiles’ cheek when he rolls his eyes.

“I’m gonna  _miss_  you,” he sighs, smiling involuntarily when Derek gives him the look – the look that’s been making him weak-kneed for two months now.

“I’ll miss you too,” Derek murmurs, pressing their foreheads together before releasing Stiles and catching his hands instead. “But we  _can_  stay in touch y’know? You’re the one that doesn’t wanna do long-distance.”

“Because I’ve seen it ruin relationships before and I don’t want that to happen to us,” Stiles insists, interlinking their fingers and squeezing. “I want this to stay our perfect thing.”

He meets Derek’s eyes, can see two months’ worth of memories in them, and then Derek’s pulling him in and kissing him breathless.

Its ends too quickly for Stiles’ liking and Derek releases him a moment later. He’s smirking when Stiles finally remembers to open his eyes and close his mouth.

“Y’know what forget what I said,” Stiles exhales, feeling a little high on endorphins or Derek or whatever. “Let’s do long-distance. I can learn to love Skype sex.”

Derek laughs, leans in to kiss him once more as they make the final call for his flight. “I have to go,” he mumbles against Stiles’ lips.

He gives Stiles’ hands one last squeeze and pulls away, getting ready to make his way to the gate with the rest of the passengers.

“Hey Derek!” Stiles calls, thinking,  _screw it_ ;  _maybe it’s time to take Scott’s advice_.

Derek turns around, smiling exasperatedly, but he waits nonetheless.

“I love you.”

Derek’s face goes blank with surprise, mouth dropping open. He’s standing frozen in the middle of a crowd of people who are starting to shoot him irritated looks.

And Stiles starts to falter – oh god he shouldn’t have said it, he _knew_  he shouldn’t have said it,  _stupid Scott_ \- when Derek stammers out, “Th-thank you!”

And then a flight attendant is coming up to him and asking for his ticket and then he’s gone.

*

“You said I love you?” Scott asks excitedly when Stiles calls him fifteen minutes later.

“Thank you? He said  _thank you?!”_  Lydia demands, obviously after grabbing the phone out of Scott’s hand.

“Wait is that  _all_  he said?” Allison asks, seemingly the only person trying to be rational right now.

“Yes that’s all he said,” Stiles sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And now he’s on a plane to another continent.” Why did he say it? He didn’t need to say it. Everything was perfect and-

“Stiles you need to go to London,” Scott says suddenly, breaking him out of his self-loathing reverie.

“What? I can’t do that!” he exclaims, dangerously close to screeching.

“You can,” Scott encourages. “Prove to him you’re serious about this and want it to work. Go get him!”

Stiles bites his lip, eyeing the screen of flight listings. He can’t just get on a plane to London. That’s insane, Derek would think- Derek would secretly think it was romantic and probably be stupidly happy about it.

He sighs, absently listening to Scott cheering him on and Lydia offering to pay for his flight.  He just- all he knows is that he can’t sit here and wait for a phone call six hours from now. He needs to talk to Derek, even if it’s just to officially break up. He needs to do this face to face.

“I’m going to London,” he decides.

“Yes!!!” Scott crows. “Go kick true love’s ass, dude!”

“Shouldn’t you maybe come home and pack a bag? Or, y’know, get your passport?” Allison suggests and Stiles can practically see the sceptically raised eyebrow.

“If I sacrifice my frequent flyer miles for this, Stilinski, you better not screw it up,” Lydia sighs.

Stiles just grins, laughs a little at how insane this all is, and says, “I’ll call you later.”

*

The lady behind the desk looks a little concerned when he bolts up to the counter and demands to know when the next flight to London is but he really doesn’t have the presence of mind to act socially appropriate right now.

By some miracle or divine intervention or something there’s still an empty seat on the next flight in a couple of hours and he begs her to hold it for him until Scott shows up with his passport.

It’s about an hour later when Scott, Allison and Lydia come rushing towards him while he’s moping in an uncomfortable airport chair. Scott runs up to him and pulls him into a bone-crushing hug, shoving his passport into his hand with an enthusiastic, “Hell yeah!”

Allison rolls her eyes fondly and hands him an overnight bag with a wink.

Lydia just impatiently takes his arm and drags him up to the check-in desk, giving the flight attendant lady her details so Stiles can use her airline miles.

Somehow two hours after he leaves Derek he ends up sitting on his own plane to England with nothing to do for over six hours but plan what he’s going to say.

*

Stiles’ plane lands at 1am, London time, and he immediately heads for the exit to hail down a taxi. He’s dead tired, running on nothing but adrenaline but he needs to see Derek.

He gives the cab driver Derek’s address and sits back, trying to relax.

He’s almost there.

*

It only takes Derek walking through the doors of the gate to realise he’s made a mistake. He ends up getting into an argument with a flight attendant about needing to leave which she’s loath to let him do even though they aren’t even on the plane yet.

When he finally does manage to successfully get out of the gate he has to spend a pointless hour at the airport talking to some travel advisor or something about rebooking his flight and getting his luggage sent back and ticket refunds and so many other things he doesn’t care about because Stiles said, “I love you.”

And Derek said, “ _Thank you.”_

Thank you? Thank you?! Who says “thank you” to an “I love you”?

He needs to go see Stiles and fix it.

When he finally gets out of the airport and heads to Stiles’ apartment no one’s home so he ends up spending hours going around the city to every place Stiles frequents and every place that’s special to them. Except he can’t find Stiles anywhere and his phone keeps going to voicemail.

He eventually ends up going back to Stiles’ apartment around 9pm. It’s Scott who answers the door, looking like- well, looking like his jaw’s about to hit the floor.

“Uh is Stiles here?” Derek asks uncertainly.

There’s some shuffling inside and suddenly Allison, Lydia and Jackson are appearing behind Scott, all looking at him in varying degrees of shock.

Well. Except Jackson, who just says, “Oh my god, you _idiot_ ,” and stalks back to the couch.

“What are you doing here?” Lydia demands when she seems to find her voice again.

“I didn’t get on my flight,” Derek explains. “I’ve been looking for Stiles all day. I-“

“Stiles is on a plane!” Lydia cuts him off hysterically

“What? To where?”

“ _London!”_  Allison, Scott and Lydia yell like it’s obvious.

Derek stares at them in disbelief, tries to stammer out a reply, but then his phone’s ringing.

It’s Stiles.

*

It isn’t until Stiles gets to Derek’s place and finds out no one’s home that he actually checks his phone.

Sixteen missed calls from Derek.

Oh crap.

He hits the redial button and puts his phone to his ear, hoping to god it still works over here. He breathes a sigh of relief he hears the dial tone before immediately freezing up when Derek answers with a frantic, “ _Stiles?”_

“Hey?” he replies uneasily. “Where are you?”

“New York. Where are you?”

And that’s- what. “What? How are you in New York?”

Derek huffs out a regretful laugh and Stiles can imagine him pacing right now, probably dragging a hand through his hair. “I didn’t get on my flight. I stayed so I could talk to you. Stiles. Where are you?”

“I’m at your place,” Stiles says faintly, brain stuck on the fact that Derek  _didn’t get on his plane_. “In London.”

Derek laughs again, somehow manages to  _sound_  like he’s rolling his eyes and breathes out, “I love you.”

Stiles grins so wide his face hurt, has the distinct feeling he might cry and says, “Thank you.”


	39. The One With All The Jealousy

Derek is used to getting things from Stiles at work – generally a phone call or an IM from where he sits two desks over. (Or a BJ in the supply closet if he’s lucky.) But this- this is ridiculous.

There’re three vases of flowers on his desk, a myriad of singing stuffed animals that have stuff like “Be Mine” stitched into the fabric and a bucket of candy hearts. A goddamn  _barbershop quartet_  just finished up serenading him. His entire workspace looks like a Valentine’s Day advertisement.

He’s just- he’s so confused right now.

He and Stiles have never been ones to flaunt their relationship, are more or less pretty good at keeping their relationship private despite the prying eyes of their officemates so he just doesn’t understand what Stiles is doing.

But Stiles is looking at him with this hopeful, nervous expression so Derek just smiles and mouths, “Thank you,” breathing a sigh of relief when Stiles’ happy grin returns and he goes back to work.

He’s gonna get to the bottom of this though.

*

“Man, I am  _beat!”_  Stiles exclaims, collapsing onto the couch and kicking off his shoes. “Who knew crunching numbers could take so much outta you, huh?” he continues, laughing to himself as he loosens his tie.

“Yeah,” Derek agrees absently, edging into the room more slowly and perching on the coffee table in front of Stiles. “Can we talk?”

Stiles sits up straight immediately, easy smile almost instantly disappearing from his face only to be replaced with a look of anguish. “About what?”

“Well, about all the gifts you’ve been sending me the last few weeks-  _not that I don’t appreciate them_!” he adds quickly at Stiles’ crestfallen face. “It’s just- not really you?”

“Can’t I show my boyfriend how much I love him?” Stiles grumbles, staring steadfastly down at his hands in his lap.

“You can,” Derek says gently, reaching over and taking his hands, interlocking Stiles’ fingers with his own. “That’s just not usually how you do it so I’m just kind of wondering why?”

Stiles sighs, looks up from underneath his eyelashes and chews on his lip before finally answering. “I just want everyone in the office to know we’re together.”

Derek furrows his brow in confusion. “Stiles, everyone  _does_  know. They had a pool going to see when we’d have sex in the copy room.”

That’s gets a ghost of a laugh out of him but he still looks dejected. It isn’t until he mumbles, “Erica doesn’t seem to know,” that things start making sense.

Erica’s new to the office but an old friend of Derek’s from college. She’s been spending a lot of time with him since she doesn’t really know anyone else in the office. “Are you jealous?” Derek asks with dawning realisation before instantly regretting it when Stiles pulls his hands away and folds his arms across his chest.

“She always flirts with you, Derek,” he scowls. “Even when I’m there!”

“Stiles, Erica -“

“I know, I know,” Stiles talks over him. “You think she’s always been like that and she acts that way with everyone but I’m telling you Derek, she-“

“Stiles, she has a boyfriend,” Derek interrupts, effectively shutting him up.

“She does?” Stiles asks quietly.

“ _Yes_ ,” he promises. “His name’s Boyd, they’ve been together since their senior year of high school. They’re practically married.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, flushing slightly, before he suddenly moves forward and smacks Derek’s arm.  _“Why didn’t you tell me that?!”_

“Ow!” Derek rubs at his arm, half-heartedly glaring at Stiles. “And I did! When you first met her!”

“I was distracted!” Stiles protests. “She was touching your shoulder!”

Derek raises an eyebrow and Stiles’ angry expression dissolves as he starts laughing abashedly. “Okay fine, sorry. Just- god I sent you a  _barbershop quartet!_  People at work already think I’m nuts.” Stiles groans, slumping back on the couch and covering his face with his hands.

Derek laughs, carefully moves off the coffee table and onto the couch next to Stiles. “Hey,” he says, grinning and tapping Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles begrudgingly peeks out from behind his hands and Derek smiles. “I love  _you_ , okay? Only you. Always you.”

Stiles’ hands slide off his face and he reaches up to tug on Derek’s collar, pulling him down into a sweet kiss. “It’s always you for me too,” he tells Derek earnestly.

“I should hope so. I seriously thought Scott was giving me a run for my money in the beginning.”

Stiles scoffs, settles his hands on Derek’s chest. “Please, it’s no competition…Scott wins all the time.”

Derek pins him down and kisses him until Stiles admits he wins by default because Scott’s never tried to kiss him like that.


End file.
